A crazy 24 hours: a quick Brand Trek to New York

So kind of like study trips, one of the things we do at the business school is we go for a 1-2 trip to another city which specialises in a certain area. As I'm trying to work in marketing over summer, I decided to hop along to a New York "Brand Trek" to visit some top retail companies in the Big Apple. The timing wasn't great - less than 1 day after getting back from Vegas! Argh!

Schedule of the day: (you may notice a common theme running through my observations, but seriously, it was about the learning/recruiting!) =)

• 10pm SF time / 1am NY time - catch Jet Blue flight to NY
• 3am SF / 6am NY - arrive in NY for breakfast
• 5am SF / 8am NY - take a taxi in the FREEZING weather and appalling traffic ...
  
  
  
  
• 7am SF / 10am NY - meet with the (very eccentric!) CEO of J.Crew (they gave us all free vouchers!)
• 9am SF / 12pm NY - meet with L'Oreal for lunch (they gave us free samples!)
• 11am SF / 2pm NY - meet with Siegel + Gale, the guys who designed the NBA, Dell, 3M logos, etc ... they only (!) gave us free food, but there could be some good work opportunities here
• 1pm SF / 4pm NY - went shopping for an hour in that incredible district around 6th Avenue and 57th Street. My goodness - the prices of those boutique stores! (nothing free here! Except getting a cold!) =)
  
  
  
  
• 2pm SF / 5pm NY - met with Louis Vitton. They were very, very interesting - a real insight into how the planning and production of $25,000 handbags go. Whoa.
• 3pm SF / 6pm NY - met with Diageo. They make Smirnoff, Bundy Rum, etc - the #1 spirits producer in the world. They put on a great show for us - they have a great function room and had a bar man and everything, as well as giving us "show bags" full of liquor!
  
  
  
  
• 6pm SF / 9pm NY - travel to the airport and grab the plane
• 1am SF / 4am NY - Finally arrive back in Stanford after a very, very long day!

Here we are. Go the Marketing Club!

ps a special mention to JetBlue. Man, what an airline. They're not only the cheapest, but also you get 36 free channels of cable TV live - I was watching the Australian open there!