Attending the Amazon Brand Ambassador Summit in Seattle

By: Allison Flowers, EC Scholar and Honors College Junior

At the end of my spring semester, I applied for the position of Amazon Brand Ambassador at East Carolina University and accepted an offer for the job at the beginning of the summer. My responsibilities in this role are to plan and execute on and off-campus marketing events that provide visibility to Amazon and the Amazon Student program, the Amazon Prime membership that is offered specifically to college students at a discounted price. In addition, I help maintain a social media presence for the Amazon Brand Ambassador program through its Twitter page @AmazonAtECU. I was asked to attend the Amazon Brand Ambassador Summit at the beginning of August to receive training for this role.

Overall, the Amazon Brand Ambassador Summit was one of the highlights of my summer. It was held from August 6^th through 9^th in Seattle, Washington, and approximately 200 Brand Ambassadors from universities throughout the United States were in attendance. During the four days that we were in Seattle, we attended various training sessions, which taught us about every aspect of our job. The session themes varied but included topics such as social media etiquette, university solicitation policies, and event planning. We also attended a session that explained internships and future career opportunities at Amazon.

In addition to attending training sessions, we were allotted time to explore the city of Seattle. Having never been to the west coast before, getting to explore the culture and vibe of a new region was particularly interesting to me. During my free time I was able to see the Space Needle, walk through the historic Pike Place Market, and visit the first Starbucks in the world. Being an avid lover of coffee and teas, visiting the first Starbucks was my favorite tourist moment of the summit. Our program managers had also planned social events to get to know other Brand Ambassadors, the highlight of which was an evening cruise of Lake Union, which featured stunning views of the Seattle skyline at sunset.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed traveling to Seattle for the Amazon Brand Ambassador Summit. The combination of attending informative training sessions, exploring Seattle, and meeting Brand Ambassadors from other universities resulted in a truly extraordinary experience. After attending all of the training sessions at the summit, I feel confident to begin my job as an Amazon Brand Ambassador at ECU and look forward to holding the first on-campus events at ECU with my fellow Brand Ambassador. If you see an Amazon table somewhere on campus, be sure to stop by and say hi!