Before last Thursday, when LeBron James made his “decision” to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers he was a hero in Cleveland and already considered one of basketball’s greatest.

Over the past seven years LeBron has become a giant in sports. Even before he entered the NBA in 2003, LeBron was dubbed “Heir Jordan.” No player has entered the league with so much hype before or after LeBron was drafted first overall.

Nike bought into that hype, giving James a $90 million endorsement deal before he played a single game. To put that into perspective, Michael Jordan signed his first contract with Nike in 1986 for $2.5 million. That’s a risky investment for Nike, signing an 18-year-old kid out of Akron, Ohio to one of the most lucrative contracts in sports history.

Leveraging athletes in order to sell brands is not new. But when did athletes stop being athletes and start becoming brands?

Marketing sports stars in order to help sell products in North America has been a marketing tradition since Lou Gehrig first appeared on the Wheaties box in 1934. This method of athlete endorsement was the norm: the athlete was a medium to help sell the brand.

This changed in the ’80s, when a scrawny kid came out of University of North Carolina by the name of Michael Jordan. Jordan took the world by storm. He was an athlete that was able to transcend sports to become a media giant. Michael Jordan became his own brand.

Jordan’s impact on the marketing landscape can still be seen today (he starred in a movie with the Looney Tunes, I think that says enough), not only with Nike’s Jordan brand, but also the impact he has had on other athletes.

Without Jordan, Tiger Woods would not be the first billion dollar athlete, and LeBron James certainly wouldn’t be the “King.”

Athletes are now groomed from a young age to understand the importance of marketing themselves as a brand. Of course these athletes have to have some form of marketability in order to become bigger then their respective sport.

Kobe Bryant is a perfect example. His image was severely tarnished after the incident in Colorado and was dropped by McDonald’s, just as Tiger Woods was by several sponsors after his now-infamous car accident in November.

However, these athletes have their own PR teams and marketing people to help them maintain themselves as a brand.

When LeBron James sat down with Jim Gray on ESPN to tell the world his decision, nearly 10 million people tuned in (the third most-watched cable program this year). According to James and his marketing company (LBJK Marketing) they sold all the media space and donated it to the Boys and Girls Club of America, a gesture only a “King” can make. But is his decision to turn his back on Cleveland going to affect brand LeBron?

Early estimates say so, but I can be certain of one thing: It seems James has entered the Jordan stratosphere. He has become more than a sports star. He now drives marketing dollars and can change the outcome of brands he chooses to endorse and cities he chooses to play for (Miami sold all season tickets prior to him announcing his decision to join the team).

Have we all just witnessed the new trend where athletes need a one-hour TV special to announce where they’re going to play? Or will athletes remain athletes? We’ll have to wait and see.

Someone wise once said, “shit flows downhill . . . and you’re at the bottom.”

As a fourth-year Commerce student studying Global Management in university, you tend to feel like the king of the playground.

As an intern, you kind of feel like that quote above. Although university has been a necessity and a pivotal factor in my incessant pursuit of personal development, nothing has made me pull up my pants higher than this internship in accounts at the fervent Grip Limited. (Ed. Vlad means this literally. He wears capris like every day.)

Inspired by countless TED Talks and with an imminent academic title of “Global Management,” how could I not think that I was ready to take over the world?

It wasn’t until halfway through my second week here that I was slapped in the face and kicked in the junk when I was asked to sit on a brand bridge brainstorming meeting for an aesthetic-enhancing product directed towards younger ladies. This was basically a sit-down with senior creative and account folk breaking down the brand to its very foundation, including a dissection of the target market.

This was an enlightening experience to say the least; very informal. Naive and new to the agency, I didn’t quite realize that I was surrounded by a good number of the firm’s partners – I guess the denim jeans and casual Ts were not a dead giveaway.

Eager to make my mark I was awaiting the right opportunity to “drop some knowledge.” The right moment never came along because the real men and women were blasting off queries and inquiries left and right, each individually but collectively working as a team chipping away at a blank canvas to form some striking masterpiece. Basically, these middle-aged men broke down the female 15-year-old psyche to its very essence.

I said one or two things that I cannot recollect, which is for the better since they’re definitely not worth repeating. I guess the main message here is that while I may be ambitious and eager to go BIG, I realized that I am still very young and have a lifetime of knowledge to pursue.

There are also a few other things I’ve learned, which can be indirectly interpreted from this situation.

1. Expose yourself.
“How did I get into that brainstorming meeting?” I asked. How did I end up writing this article? I exposed myself. Talk to senior creative directors, and if you’re lucky like I am you’ll even get to greet the odd partner with a “good morrow” here and there. Follow up with a confident head nod. Send out a mass email asking if people from different departments are in need of some facilitation. Remember to smile.

(Note: do not overstep your boundaries. If you are assigned to a specific team, task or project, make sure your job is completed to the utmost of your capabilities, and then some, before you go wandering off.)

2. Give it to ‘em.
While you have your whole future to fine tune your skills on the way to being the next big Ad Exec, you’ve only got four months to show them what you’re made of. So SPEAK UP. It’s sometimes difficult to find opportunities to demonstrate your skills. For that reason, you must pursue them. Don’t test the water with your big toe. Do a double-front flip off the diving board and make a splash. Show people what you’re capable of, and along the way you’ll learn . . . even if only for your sake.

3. Always grow.
Experience is an essential factor that makes an individual a great ad man/woman. Thus, absorb everything you can. Be patient. Be ambitious. Be diligent . . . and you’ll get there. So I’m told.

An intern, now wise, says, “give me your shit, I’ll turn it into gold.”

So here it is: some of the biggest brands in the country have identified my hometown of London, ON as a sweetspot for market research. Brands like McDonald’s, Krispy Kreme, Canadian Tire, and Viagra have triangulated their options, and somehow all concluded that if it’ll sell in London, it’ll likely sell anywhere in Canada.

Now, London is my town, so I’m no stranger to the buzz of consumer research. I know, for example, that it was a thirsty London population that gave Labatt breweries its boozy start back in 1847, and that London Life Insurance Company, Ford, Kellogg’s, 3M, Trojan Technologies, Electro-Motive Canada and all major operations of General Motors operate out of there.

So, while I appreciate London’s inherent charms from a personal perspective, this market testing thing has me wondering: what is it about my hometown that makes it such an attractive proposition to large corporations?

I nudged together some stats to try to get to the bottom of it, and here’s what I came away with:

• The average age of the population is 38.2 years old
• The population is pretty evenly divided: 48.2% male and 51.8% female
• The retired population reflects Canada as a whole, with a 13.7% retiree rate
• There is a middle-class-to-millionaire standard of wealth – an average family take-home salary is $68,000
• Very low unemployment rates, high home-ownership rates
• 84.8% of the population of London are white – represented by English (115,540); Canadian (88,225); Scottish (80,735); Irish (69,825); and German (40,100)

If London has been identified as an ideal marketing ground, perhaps it would be valuable to investigate it as a new agency venue.

I put it to you, Canadians and otherwise: what do you think makes a city like London prime for marketing reconnaissance?

Getting into advertising is similar to learning how to ride a bike. You know you want to do it, but you don’t know how. You don’t jump from a tricycle or Big Wheel (if you are a by-product of the 80s) to a 21-speed, you need someone to show you how to do it.

Being an intern is like riding with training wheels. You can get up to a good speed, but if you start to sway there’s someone there to catch you. I quickly realized that on my first day.

That first day, in my head, I kept repeating “Is my work good enough?” I still ask myself that question. The answer is probably, “No.” Or to put it more politely, “you just need to try it a different way.” But that’s why you’re here, to learn from your mistakes. No intern is going to walk in on their first day and get it right. If they did, they wouldn’t be an intern.

The key though is to learn from those mistakes; sure that first day/week/month is going to be full of, “try this again” or “you’re missing something here.” You know what? I love mistakes. The more mistakes I make the better, because in the long run I’ve learned more. The mistakes are what get you to the next level.

So to any student or intern reading this, I recommend to develop a thick hide; getting into this line of work involves a lot of rejection. Check your pride at the door, and know that for every good/great idea you have, they’re probably five that are sitting in the trashcan.

I’m not going to lie and say that getting rejected is easy, especially when it’s something you’ve stayed up all night working on. But it does get easier, and eventually you’re going to be able to determine what works and doesn’t work yourself.

Keep at it and eventually you’ll lose those training wheels, and before you know it you’ll be riding all on your own.