Bobby's Burger Palace is offering college students a fun way to get some marketing experience through their BBPU internship program, serving up fries and resume builders all in one. BBPU, or Bobby's Burger Palace University, is an internship that is designed to give students a better understanding of the marketing world, according to Alexandra Niakani, marketing analyst for Bobby's Burger Palace.
“I just hope that they leave feeling confident going into their next internship," Niakani said.
The program was first established three years ago at the University of Maryland. Another branch was started two years ago at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Niakani graduated from GW in 2014 and was a BBPU intern during her last year at school. She was then hired by the company to work full-time and has been involved for a year and a half. Right now, Niakani is the only person working to oversee the internship. She said that expansion of the program to other schools and cities would have to start with an expansion of the internal staff.
As interns, the students are required to use social media to promote the brand, orchestrate group events, practice marketing campaigns and promote the BBP brand on campus. Niakani gives them some sort of promotional assignment every month that they need to do in order to fulfill their job requirement.
Abigail Fine, sophomore communications major, is one of five interns at the UMD branch of BBPU. She said that one of the most helpful things she's learned at the internship is how to write a press release. The interns had to write one to promote the burger of the month, and she said that being able to practice writing them and get feedback from Niakani really helped her skills improve.
Fine said they do a lot of spreading the word about Crunch Tuesdays, which is a promotion for students where they can bring their student ID to BBP and can receive 10 percent off their purchase every Tuesday. They also put together a blogger's luncheon, for which they reached out to bloggers in the area like Spoon University, Her Campus and D.C. food Instagram account holders.
Interns earn three class credits when they complete 135 hours of the program. They are also paid just over eight dollars an hour after taxes and receive $50 gift cards for Bobby's to encourage them to eat at the restaurant, bring their friends and order things they would not usually order.
“Every week we have to come up with six social media campaign suggestions to show to our boss," Fine said. “We send in two Instagrams with the captions, two Facebook posts with the pictures that go along with them and two Tweets to our boss, which she actually uses. It's cool to see our work being shown on their official pages and feeds."
One of the perks of the internship is that the students got to spend a day in New York City with Bobby Flay himself. They learned about his restaurants and the industry and were treated to a meal at Bar Americain, one of his establishments in New York City.
“This is my first experience in the marketing industry and I'm definitely enjoying it so far, and I'm interested in pursuing it in the future," Fine said. “If the internship was more than a set syllabus, and I could continue to do more for Bobby's in the fall, I would."
According to scribd.com, to apply to be a BBPU intern for the fall, you can email a resume and cover letter along with an unofficial transcript to bbpuinternship@gmail.com.
