As a studio designer at EP+Co (formerly Erwin Penland), an advertising agency in Greenville, South Carolina, Madison Canter has had a taste of the glamorous side of advertising in the form of trips to New York City and West Palm Beach for new business pitches.
She’s also learned, and taught others, how to make an origami chicken.
That project was for client Chick-fil-A, which has a blog with fun activities for families to do with children, such as origami projects.
“What I like most about advertising is the variety of projects from day to day,” she said.
She has also written HTML code for Verizon marketing emails and been part of focus groups for new Denny’s pancake recipes. No matter what clients she works with, Canter has found one of her favorite parts of the job is seeing how projects evolve.
“I really like the way agencies work… It’s cool how all the teams come together to solve one advertising problem for a client and sometimes end up creating ideas that revolutionize the companies’ business altogether.”
Canter, who is from North Wilkesboro, received a Bachelor of Science in Communication, Advertising degree with a double minor in commercial photography and marketing.
While at Appalachian, she secured four internships that used her design and project management skills and was president of Appalachian’s Advertising Club. During her senior year, she was part of the yearlong National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) campaign class, which put together and presented a campaign for Snapple.
“On group projects at school,” she said, “I was always the one who did the presentation.”
That skill has served her well at EP+Co, where she is often called to design new business pitch presentations. Through her work on the pitches, she’s been able to get to know members of the management team – an advantage that’s seldom available to many people starting their careers.
Her advice for others interested in the field?
“The most important thing is being willing to work on anything and everything,” she said, “and being open to learning new programs and gaining new skills.”
