Making Connections Through Storytelling – and Finding a Career

For Nick Gardner ’18, a marketing degree was the perfect opportunity to pursue two of his passions: storytelling and connecting with others.

“Marketing is really about communicating a message through a story,” he said. “Whether that is through video or podcast, it’s really about trying to connect with someone.”

Now a podcast host, and video producer and editor at Adweek in New York City, Gardner has turned his passions into his profession.

Gardner discovered his love for visual storytelling early. When he was 8 years old, he got his first camera and started taking photos and videos. In fifth grade, he taught a class to his teachers about using visual teaching methods in the classroom. By the time he came to the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business in 2014, he was determined to make visual storytelling his career.

He gained some early experience producing promotional video content for the Smith School of Business. He also joined the Strategic Design and Innovation Fellows program, where he gained real-world marketing experience that has helped him in his current role at Adweek. “As a person who specialized in video, it really opened my eyes to how I could use all the skills I learned in storytelling and making videos in the real business world.”

Gardner also sharpened his skills outside of class. In his free time, he began doing personal projects and freelance work in his hometown of Bel Air, Md. During the school year, he balanced internships with Moment Management, an influencer agency, and InStreamOne, a digital marketing service. At Moment Management, Gardner helped the company edit video content for social media. At InStreamOne, he helped the company tailor content to social media. In 2017, he spent the summer in St. Thomas, where he worked as a video production and social media strategy intern for a local tour group.

He also spent a semester abroad at the IE Business School in Spain, learning things that still resonate with him today.

“I really learned to ask a lot of questions, because that’s the only way you are going to learn how to connect to different consumers,” Gardner said. “In a place like that, where you don’t really know anybody, I think it’s important to really be proud of your work and to advocate for yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you.”

Those lessons helped Gardner earn one of his current roles at Adweek. When Adweek published a written series about Generation Z CEOs, Gardner saw an opportunity – Why not turn the idea into a podcast? Adweek liked the idea, officially launching the “Gen ZEOs Podcast,” which Gardner now hosts. The podcast features conversations with Gen Z's most influential business leaders, who discuss their stories, the future of marketing and what's top of mind for Gen Z.

It’s an exciting time for brand marketing, he said, with consumers increasingly becoming capable of seeing through marketing campaigns that lack emotional appeal. And that’s part of what drives him, looking for ways to connect, emotionally, through storytelling content.

– By Sean Liu, special writer. Photo by Sean T. Smith for Adweek.

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