Account Strategy Intern

The Shipyard is a leading, independent marketing and communication agency headquartered in Columbus, OH and San Diego, CA that brings together talented individuals across the creative, communications, media and digital landscape.

Uniquely designed to Engineer Brand Love through a unifying approach of paid, owned and earned channels, we work together to grow brands that audiences can't help but love.

Our family of brands, Fahlgren Mortine, TURNER and TinyWins, spans integrated communications, travel and lifestyle, and digital innovation, giving us the range and depth to deliver for clients locally, regionally and nationally.

Momentum is nothing without the people driving it. See who we are at https://theshipyard.com/culture before you hit apply!

SUMMARY

Our goal is to give interns real-world experience at a fully integrated, digitally savvy ad agency, specifically on our Account Strategy team. We aim to create more opportunities for diverse talent to gain exposure, experience, and access to jobs in the marketing and advertising space.

We are looking for a curious, motivated Account Strategy Intern to join our Columbus, OH team part-time, working 20-24 hours per week. This paid internship ($18/hour) offers hands-on experience in agency strategy. You will audit clients and their categories, track what’s moving in culture, support research projects, and build the tools the Account Strategy team uses.

This is a hybrid work from home/office position (in-office attendance is required on Tuesdays & Thursdays) and the candidate must live near Columbus, OH.

At The Shipyard, we know that it's your unique talents, backgrounds, and perspectives that make you who you are, just like our team, who come from various career paths and experiences. We believe we can't be truly diverse without you bringing your most authentic self to the agency.

Studies show that people from marginalized communities may not always apply for positions if they don't meet every single requirement in a job posting. At The Shipyard, we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet all the requirements. We believe that your passion for what we stand for - our values and purpose - is just as important as meeting every checkbox.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

Interns will be dedicated to the Account Strategy department. They will be assigned a supervisor to provide general guidance and mentorship while learning about the agency and how we work cross-functionally, having an opportunity to explore and learn about all parts of an advertising agency.

Projects

• Client audits. Assess the client, their business, their competitors, their category, and the macro cultural forces around them. Feeds new business and active accounts.
• Culture and trend spotting. Track what’s moving in culture outside client work. Share it with the whole team on a regular rhythm.
• Research project support. Help run active research projects: timelines, briefs, fieldwork coordination, and synthesis of findings.
• Vendor management. Keep research vendor relationships organized. Track scopes, schedules, and deliverables. Serve as the day-to-day contact.
• Department initiatives. Build the infrastructure the team uses:
• A repository of workshop exercise and strategy deck examples.
• Case studies built from past strategy work, ready for new business.
• Claude Skills tailored to team workflows, distributed to the department.

SKILLS YOU'LL BUILD

You’ll learn how strategy gets done at an agency. You’ll size up a category, track its competitors, and read about the culture around both. You’ll synthesize cultural and macro trends into a point of view. You’ll design research, manage the moving parts, and keep vendors on scope and on time.

You’ll sharpen how you communicate. You’ll distill findings into insight people can use, and you’ll turn strategy work into case studies that tell the story.

You’ll also build how knowledge moves. You’ll organize the department’s work, so the best thinking is easy to find and easy to reuse. And you’ll apply AI to real workflows by designing, testing, and documenting Claude Skills the team uses every day.

You don’t need to know it all yet. You need curiosity and the drive to learn.

Requirements

• Must be authorized to work in the US without the need for Visa sponsorship.
• It is expected that internship candidates have a High School Diploma/GED.