Getting the message
Andrew Johnson will return to New York City this spring as he prepares for full-time work with BBH USA. He graduates this May as the William W. White Outstanding Senior from CMCI’s Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Media Design.
By Joe Arney
Photo by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm’18)
In high school, Andrew Johnson was smart enough to get good grades without having to put forth his best effort.
“I remember my dad told me, ‘You’re going to have a rude awakening once you get to college,’” Johnson said with a laugh. “And he was right.”
Safe to say he found another gear: As he prepares to graduate from CMCI as the William W. White Outstanding Senior from the Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Media Design, Johnson said he’s most proud of how he learned to demand better work of himself and become a better teammate on projects. He also praised “the phenomenal professors who really pushed me to be where I am right now.”
“Once I transferred into APRD, I was studying things like advertising and PR that I knew nothing about,” he said. “In some ways, that forced me to put forth that extra effort and try to be the best version of myself in class.”
That carried over to his extracurriculars, too. Johnson arrived at APRD via journalism, and went to an Ad Club meeting to learn about what he was studying.
He called that meeting “the turning point in my time at CU.”
“I finally felt like I found something I was passionate about,” Johnson said. “I left the meeting and called my mom immediately, and I told her, ‘Mom, I found out what I want to do with my life.’”
Big Apple, big opportunity
“I left the meeting and called my mom immediately, and I told her, ‘Mom, I found out what I want to do with my life.’”
Andrew Johnson (StratComm’25)
He stayed on with Ad Club, serving as its president during his senior year, even as he was also interning remotely this spring with New York-based BBH USA, a full-service advertising agency that’s part of the worldwide Publicis Groupe. That assignment followed a successful summer internship onsite at BBH; he’ll return to the company in an account management and client services role after graduation.
This year, he also played an instrumental role with the National Student Advertising Competition, working on a campaign contest alongside his classmates; they took second place in last month’s district competition. Lessons from his internship came in handy when, at winter break, the team was stuck with two concepts he wasn’t happy with.
It reminded him of the final project presentation he did at BBH, in which he struggled to guide the creative team toward the goal.
“I was in the gym after work one night and called my boss, with just no idea what to do,” Johnson said. “He gave me really good advice about how to better work with creatives by showing them where to go, instead of prescribing solutions.”
Gaining confidence
George Khandji, an account director with Publicis, mentored Johnson during his internship, where he watched his younger charge become more proactive and confident in leading his intern class over the summer.
“Andrew has a natural curiosity and eagerness to learn that really stood out,” Khandji said. “That mindset, paired with his calm under pressure and team-first attitude, makes me confident he’ll thrive in the account management department.”
As he prepares to move to New York City—“I’m kind of terrified, more than anything,” he said—Johnson is excited to build a new community after living his whole life in Boulder.
“I don’t know what that looks like, aside from the job—but I’m excited to figure it out,” he said.