Spenser Jaenichen ’19 is getting a chance to experience May in Indianapolis as an intern with the marketing and advertising agency Mortenson Kim. He likes what he’s seen.

“Before I had this internship, May was just another month and the Indianapolis 500 was just another festivity,” he said. “But after seeing how much goes into it, that they’ve created this whole month of events rather than just a daylong event, it’s really exciting.”

Mortenson Kim creates ads and provides other services for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Jaenichen’s role has been to put audio subtitles into video reminders sent to ticket buyers to renew their seats. It’s peripheral to the big projects the agency is doing, he said, but “as an intern, I can’t expect to be right in the heart of things.”

The Goshen, Indiana, native came to Butler to study Strategic Communication. He had originally chosen Xavier University, but his mother suggested he go to Butler—where he’d also been accepted—on New Student Registration Day. “I felt an environment that I didn’t feel anywhere else,” he said. “I fell in love. That was the beginning of a beautiful relationship between the two of us.”

During his first year, he decided to add a second major, Economics. “The academics of Economics is rigorous,” he said, “and I figured if I understood it, it would help me across all facets of my education, not just business and not just advertising.”

He started his internship in February and has worked on projects with a client list that includes Roche Diagnostics, the Hoosier Lottery, and Michelob Golden Light. He said the experience he’s gaining is exactly what he hoped for. The internship has gone so well, in fact, that the firm asked him to stay through the summer.

Jaenichen said he’s become fascinated by marketing analytics—using data to support advertising campaigns—and that may be his future. Either that or law school.

In fact, while he’s excited about the Indianapolis 500-related work being done at his internship, he’ll be skipping the race this year because the LSAT exam is two weeks after the 500. Race weekend will be dedicated to studying.

“I’d been looking at tickets,” he said, “but I know that’s a bad idea. It’s one of those temptations you have to resist.”