Ever Wonder What Working For Ryan Reynolds Is Like?

On October 13, 2020, Adrian Molina, Senior Brand Marketing Manager at Aviation American Gin, spoke to our members about his exciting job in the spirits industry!

Due to the high-profile nature of his role, we are unable to share a recording of the meeting. Becoming a member is a way for you to be a part of exclusive events like this one (wink, wink). For now, here’s a second-hand account of what happened.

From his Manhattan home, Adrian recounted how he got to where he is now. With his glass of Aviation Gin in hand, he described what it’s like to be “a decade under the influence,” or having spent 10 years in the alcohol industry. He began his career with Aviation’s parent company, Davos Brands, as a social media coordinator. In 2010, brands didn’t know how to use social media as they do now; He witnessed, firsthand, how the world of social media grew and learned how to utilize it for his employers along the way by taking free Google SEO courses and discovering how social media influences public relations.

Through these experiences, he learned that he didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a social media or digital marketer. He wanted to be a marketer – period. He described his career journey as being full of trial and error and advised us to not be afraid to fail or to admit when we need help.

Of course, the most anticipated part of this meeting was hearing about working with a celebrity. Adrian gave us the inside scoop about their iconic advertisement in response to Peloton’s 2019 commercial. He walked us through the crazy timeline leading up to releasing the commercial with plenty of funny stories along the way. CNN played the ad in its entirety the morning after Reynolds posted it and as we know, it went viral.

“It was mind-blowing. You can’t pay for that,” said Adrian.

When the floor was opened to questions, we learned more about what it’s like to work for a brand with a high-profile celebrity attached to its name. Adrian also gave advice about job interviews. To summarize, he says to be a human! He enjoys when applicants show their personality and advised us to show initiative by researching the company and the interviewer.

To end our meeting, Adrian joined us in a round of Kahoot about brand recognition (which he nearly won!). We were presented with different logos and we had to guess which brand it belonged to. There were also questions about companies that are owned by celebrities, just like Aviation Gin. This drove home the idea that having a celebrity tied to a brand really helps with publicity, but of course, it can cause trouble as well. We thanked Adrian for his time and a lot of us connected with him on LinkedIn.

Being in a virtual setting gives our chapter the opportunity to have fun guests from different states like Adrian. If you missed this meeting, don’t worry! If you weren’t aware, PRSSA hosts the Student Development Conference (SDC). This year, the event is being hosted as a Zoom webinar and it will be dispersed throughout the course of three days. This year, we have speakers from the New York Giants, the Cleveland Cavaliers, Instagram, Hulu, Pinterest, Google, Cravings by Chrissy Teigen, and more! This event is free and open to all students. Keep an eye out on our social media for more information on this event.