Intern Diaries: Annie Pan

At Milk Makeup, our interns work hard behind the scenes to keep our ship sailing. Here you'll get an inside look to see exactly what a day in the life looks like for them. In this edition of Intern Diaries, get to know Annie Pan (she/her). Annie works for our social media team and is the winner of the Milk Makeup Visionary Fund. Find out more about her day to day as a remote intern for Milk. 

What school do you go to and what are you studying?

I go to UC Berkeley and I study global business and interdisciplinary design.

What does that entail?

It's actually a very complicated program. It’s part of the business school and I wanted to add a global edge to my degree. There’s a study abroad component—I take international business courses in London and then also additional international business classes here at Berkeley.

I wanted to focus more on marketing, which is kind of similar to what I do here at Milk. I've also taken classes for interdisciplinary design. I'm in my own research/“create your major” program. I've always been really into creativity and design, but at Berkeley, there isn't any major like that. So, I found this program called interdisciplinary studies and I met up with a few professors and they actually were willing to sponsor this separate independent program for me. 

The full name of the major is actually “art, experience design, and psychology.” I take courses across those categories as well as information, architecture, and even media studies. In my final semester, which is right now, I take all these learnings and create a big research component from it.

What’s your dream job? When I was younger, I knew for sure I wanted to do something creative. In college, I've explored different areas of it—from a marketing lens, user experience, product design.  I think a dream job would be some kind of design director a creative director position. I thought it would always be really cool to work on different art directions, on shoots, or on the design strategy of campaigns, brands, or products. I've always dabbled in different areas of design, so I feel like that knowledge would be very helpful in doing a bigger creative role in the future. What made you want to intern at Milk? I've always been a big fan of Milk in a lot of different ways—the aesthetics and the values. I've always really aligned with the brand. I actually was first hooked up with Milk through the Visionary Fund through the Fashion Scholarship Fund. It was a  perfect opportunity because I've been a fan of the brand for a while. They connected me and were like, “do this case study for Milk for a chance to be one of their visionary scholars.”  It was really exciting because I've always had a lot of ideas for integrating tech into beauty. I presented some ideas and here I am interning for Milk. I'm a social intern and I mainly work on Pinterest. Even though I focus on one social media platform, there's always so much opportunity to integrate my creativity into different areas during ideation sessions.

I love how Milk is always super open to trying new creative things in the approach to marketing and different product releases. So many aspects of this company are about creativity—that’s one of its values. Working for Milk has been perfect in allowing me to further explore creativity in the marketing realm.

Can you tell me a bit more about the Fashion Scholarship Fund and your Visionary Fund?

I was first introduced to FSF through my school. It’s based in Silicon Valley, so most students [gravitate toward] tech or consulting. I felt very pressured to do that as well, but then when I saw this opportunity, I thought hey, I like fashion and beauty. 

[To be considered,] I submitted a case study on another beauty brand—you could choose anything. Since I've always liked beauty, [I went with that]. I'm very grateful that I got chosen, and I think I did because what I put together aligned with some of Milk's ideas. 

They selected a few marketing case studies from the FSF scholars to compete once more for the Visionary Scholar Fund. So essentially, I did the same thing as before, and then I made another marketing case study with separate ideas for Milk. I presented it to some of the folks that I work with today, and the CEO [Tim Coolican]. Even if I didn't win, it was such a rewarding opportunity. 

What was your case study about?

I wanted to integrate the brand values and social impact into the ideas. For the first one, I came up with a digital integration into its marketing strategies. I focused on some of the bigger social impact issues these days, like mental health, and how that could be involved in different PR strategies. 

For Milk, I took a similar approach where I analyzed and really drilled into Gen Z's values, Milk's values, and how they intersect. Milk is all about representation and self-expression—creativity was one aspect I really honed in on. I came up with an app or social media filter where you can take a photo of yourself and use a paint brush to draw on your own makeup look. I showed how that would work with different Milk products. 

I also explored ideas like mental health, representation, and how that can be integrated into pop-up events or ads that involved QR codes. One thing that really resonated with the Milk team was collecting data and actually testing the idea out. Some advice for anyone else trying for this scholarship: They really like seeing actual feedback on the ideas that you have.

What's a typical day like at Milk?

I'm actually a remote intern which is a bummer. I did tour the office once, but day to day, I wake up very early. Sometimes my day starts at 6:30 AM because I'm on Pacific time, and Milk Makeup is in New York. I have a check in with my manager, then right after the call, I get tea or an energy drink because I need caffeine. 

Then I start looking at Pinterest boards. I post my Pinterest posts, but my tasks vary. Like sometimes I’ll start my day organizing other social media posts or start looking at Pinterest strategies. Honestly, it doesn't even seem like a job because during my normal day-to-day hours, if I'm going to the bathroom or if I'm walking to class I'm on social media. 

After work, I like to either go for a run at the gym or I go to class. So, not very exciting, but after school is done, sometimes my friends and I go to a student bar nearby and grab a drink, especially if it's Taco Tuesday. It's dollar tacos. That's always a vibe. 

Any advice you have for people who want to intern at Milk? Be your authentic self. One thing that I found different working at Milk versus previous companies is there's a lot of unique personalities here. I think a brand that's all about diversity and representation wants to see people from different backgrounds, with different likes, interests, and personalities.  When I worked in other settings, it was very professional, so my personality at work was very different from my actual one. I think with Milk, there's no wrong answers, especially when you’re working on something creative. Just yell an idea out and maybe it could be like the next Tiktok.  What is the thing that you're most proud of that you've worked on at Milk so far? I mainly work on a specialized Pinterest for Milk. Previously, Pinterest hasn't really been an area of focus. But what I did was revamp a lot of the boards and some of the ideas going into the Pinterest strategy. This includes a whole reorganization of the existing content and curating new content for Milk. In terms of the actual performance of new pins, it seems like it's been working pretty well. I've used Pinterest for a really long time. I love organizing content and boards, so it's been really rewarding to see a kind of inactive part of Milk's social strategy be very active, organized, and up to date.

What is your personal relationship with beauty?

Growing up, I never really used a lot of beauty products. It was kind of taboo for some reason in the community that I grew up in, Silicon Valley. Everyone was very tech-oriented. I remember in elementary school whenever kids would wear makeup, even something like lip gloss, they would get bullied. For a long time, I thought I couldn’t touch beauty products. 

Once I started tapping into my creativity, I started to get more interested. I actually got into beauty through fashion, because I started working fashion shows and sewing on the side.They go hand in hand. I realized I can create really cool art with different kinds of beauty products, so I started experimenting.

Makeup artists create really intricate beauty looks on the models at fashion shows, which I find super exciting. It is literally art and your skin is the canvas. 

What are your ride-or-die Milk makeup products?

I definitely love the Hydro Grip Setting Spray. That thing works wonders. I also struggle with makeup sweating off in the middle of the day. Sometimes I forget that I have Hydro Grip on and at the end of the day, I'm like, “Wow, me makeup is really staying on.” Then I remember, “oh yeah, makes sense, I used Hydro Grip today.” The first product I ever used from Milk was Lip + Cheek. The packaging is super cute; very compact and versatile. 

What is your go-to coffee order? I'm actually more of a tea girl, but for coffee, I usually get a plain latte or cappuccino  with soy milk because I'm lactose intolerant. But there's this one coffee that I've tried that just changed my life; I think it was like a lavender blueberry latte. It sounds crazy, but I think its color is blue, too. It was the best thing I've ever had.  What’s your favorite kind of tea? If Yerba Mate counts for caffeine purposes, definitely that. If not, ever since I went to England last semester, I like a simple English tea with soy, oat milk, or anything that's not normal milk. It's really good. It's light, but it has a little bit of creaminess to it, and it's just like it tastes so good. It doesn't have that lingering coffee taste to it.  I also like boba tea, with chewy tapioca balls in it. I usually get fruit jelly in mine. I think that's always a great small dose of caffeine, but keeps me going for the rest of the day. What's your Zodiac sign? Do you feel like you resonate with it? I'm a Capricorn, and to be honest, I've always been kind of confused about these star signs. At one point, I was following it pretty religiously but then I feel like it was confirmation bias.

What's an album or song that you're listening to on repeat right now?

The music I listen to is a little bit more niche. I really like EDM music, melodic dubstep. I like going to festivals. I think anything by Illenium or Said The Sky. They definitely get me in the feels, but they haven't released albums in a while. I listen to the older ones because it reminds me of my childhood. 

Have you been to any EDM festivals?

Some of them are one-day events, I don't know if they’d count as a festival. The only multiple-day festival I've been to was Coachella last year. That's not really EDM but that was crazy. It's definitely not what it seems like on social media and all that.

I feel like by day three everyone is completely out of it.

Absolutely. Last year it was The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia that took over day three because Kanye dropped out. But then, I was tired and after walking around in cowboy boots for eight hours a day… by the third day I was sitting on the ground. I could barely see The Weeknd, my phone was dead, I couldn’t even record. I just wanted to go home. It's crazy out there but then at the end I’m like, “oh, that was so fun!”