About Ashley Rebecca Grim

I am a driven 2011 Penn State Graduate with a B.A. in Marketing and a Leadership Development Minor. Although Penn State educated, I was Pittsburgh raised and along with blue and white, I also bleed black and gold. I'm very passionate about my time at Penn State because I would not be the person I am today if it weren't for the people and experiences I had along the way. My Pittsburgh, blue-collar town has given me strong roots and a great work ethic. My school has taught me to achieve success with honor, along with the notion that pride and tradition last forever. I am currently looking to break into the marketing industry focusing on digital media, print, and campaign management. My ultimate dream is to become a copywriter and create the next big ad campaign. I have a way with words and from the kind words of my close friends, "I'm stupid creative."

I don't know why, but I cannot only recite, but re-enact the most random movie lines, jingles, or commercials even from before I was born. I am huge on pop culture and my guilty pleasures include some, not all, reality television, along with any type of magazine. I pride myself on being a highly educated and intelligent woman, but I still care about what The Kardashian's are doing and "who wore it best." I am fascinated by commercials, print advertisements, and the weight they have on consumers' decisions. I guess that is where my love and yearning to work in this specific industry comes from.

I have experience with first, Vitamin Water, as an intern with their sales department. Although I spent a large amount of time placing orders, managing accounts and store supervisors, setting up point of sale items and launching future promotions, I was able to appreciate the amount of time and effort it takes a company to represent their company to their target demographic, and further more retain those customers. On weekends, I worked with Brand Management at local Pittsburgh events, displaying and promoting vitamin and smart water to consumers. I really enjoyed interacting with the community and felt honored to represent the product as a person. It was also interesting to see how each event was geared towards our target demographic. I attended many health expos, 5K's, and a children's football clinic put on by a current Indianapolis Colt and former Pittsburgh native.

At News America Marketing, I was placed as an intern with Custom Media. We worked with non-traditional clients, such as service, restaurant, entertainment, pharmaceutical and insurance industries. I prepared all media kits for account managers' sales meetings by pulling creative of competitor clients and past advertisements our company produced. The kits were also equipped with "mock" target markets focusing on locations, occupations, and personal information of the company's target market. Tracking reports were also a daily task I would complete for Account Directors. Aside from my daily activity in the office, I also participated in News America Marketing's Intern Project. My team was given a budget and asked to design a mobile application for the company's flagship, SmartSource Magazine. Our work included research about the target SmartSource consumers, similar mobile applications, endless meetings with marketing executives and Augme Mobile (a electronic design company placed with us), designing creative and mock-ups explaining the entire mobile application and creating a presentation for the executive board of News America Marketing. The work, time management, and time synchronizing between New York, Chicago, and LA offices were challenging, but the reward at the end of the project was so much greater. We were given an honest experience and a taste of the real-world that I will always appreciate.

I have created this portfolio to help with my career search and expose my work to companies who may find my work a fit for their company. I am just starting out, but thats the good thing about starting at the bottom, you can only go up.

Thanks for visiting!

-Ashley Grim