Students
2009 Summer Internship with The Clorox Company
by Charlene Su
Brand: Pine Sol
This summer I worked as an Associate Marketing Manager Intern at The Clorox Company on the Pine-Sol brand. I was in a class of seven brand interns who came from Wharton, Kellogg, Stanford, Berkeley, HBS, Michigan and UCLA. In addition to the brand interns, there were two other Marketing Intelligence interns from Wharton and Michigan. The nine of us got to know one another really well, averaging at least one happy hour, group dinner and/or company outing per week!
I worked on two projects that were very much intertwined. My main project was for the base business where I developed a scent strategy for Pine-Sol’s product portfolio (Pine-Sol has seven scents). I was tasked with determining how Pine-Sol should prioritize its scent portfolio in an environment of SKU rationalization and increased competition based on scent innovations, downward pricing pressures and increased trade activity. My second project was for the innovation business where I worked closely with the Marketing Intelligence and R&D groups in order to provide input and guidance on future Pine-Sol fragrance innovations. At the end of both projects, I presented my findings to the New Business and Home Care Leadership Teams which included Managers, Directors and VPs from all of the cross-functional groups I worked with. It was thrilling to be able to collaborate with them and have such high visibility and impact in the short amount of time that I was there.
No two days were the same at Clorox. In addition to my project work, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend a commercial shoot, observe focus groups, conduct store visits and had over 20 one-on-one informational meetings in order to gain a better understanding of the different functional groups within Clorox. I also received ~2 hours of training per week which showed me how dedicated Clorox is to training and developing their employees.
Two things really stand out to me about Clorox: people and thought leadership. Clorox really favors those who are able to connect with others and network their way across the organization both professionally and personally. Clorox also favors those that have a point of view and are able to influence others. As you can probably tell, I loved my summer experience at Clorox and also loved being right across the bay from San Francisco!