Each year, students in the University of Delaware’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics gain real-world experience through internships that sharpen their skills and launch their careers. For Julia Birchfield, Class of 2026, that experience led to international recognition. A marketing and global enterprise management double major with a minor in business analytics, Birchfield spent her summer as a marketing associate with Seaside Vacations and Sales, based on Chincoteague Island, Virginia, and in Ocean City, Maryland, where her work helped earn the company the 2025 VRMA Best Property Manager Marketing Campaign Award—one of the vacation rental industry’s top honors.
In her role, Birchfield and her team received the 2025 VRMA Best Property Manager Marketing Campaign Award, an international award presented by the Vacation Rental Management Association, recognizing the top marketing campaign in the vacation rental industry each year. It is an international award judged on creativity, effectiveness and overall campaign performance.
Lerner: How did you find out about this internship, and what motivated you to pursue it?
Birchfield: I started as an intern two years ago by asking them to create the position for me. They didn’t usually have interns, but I had made the connections with the owners, and they told me that they would create a position for me. I worked for them as a marketing intern for four months, then was hired on as their marketing associate full-time.
Lerner: What was the most exciting task or project you completed?
Birchfield: The most exciting project I completed was Seaside’s award-winning 10th anniversary campaign, which also celebrated the 100th annual Chincoteague Pony Swim. In December 2024, our owners asked my marketing partner, Timothy Johnson, and me to develop a campaign strong enough to win the 2025 VRMA Best Property Manager Marketing Campaign Award, so we approached the project thoughtfully and with a clear creative direction.
The centerpiece of the campaign was a full-length documentary we produced in-house called Tides of Tradition, highlighting the history, community and culture of Chincoteague. We spent months interviewing locals and shaping a story that reflected the heart of the island. The film reached thousands of viewers within its first day, was screened locally, and submitted to multiple film festivals. Between the two of us, we dedicated more than 500 hours to the project – writing, filming, editing, and producing the documentary ourselves while I was still a full-time student. Much of the editing even took place in Morris Library during finals week, which made the final product feel especially meaningful.
The campaign ultimately achieved record engagement and went on to win the International VRMA Marketing Campaign of the Year Award, which we accepted this past October in Las Vegas. It was an ambitious project and certainly challenging at times, but also one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had in marketing.
Lerner: What did you learn from this full-time role that you don’t think you would have learned elsewhere?
Birchfield: One thing I don’t think I could have learned anywhere else is how to execute large-scale projects with such a small team. Seaside is located on a very small island, without the resources or staffing of a major corporation, yet our marketing reach functions like one. Working in that environment taught me how to be incredibly creative, analytical and focused in every step of the process. I learned how to plan and deliver major campaigns with only three people, which required a level of strategic thinking and problem-solving that most large organizations already have systems for.
This experience also allowed me to apply my academic work in real time. Rather than just learning marketing concepts on paper, I was able to use them in a professional environment and see the direct impact on the company. It made my education feel much more tangible and meaningful because I could actually see the difference the work was making in real life.
Lerner: Can you share an example of a time when you applied something you’ve learned at Lerner to your role?
Birchfield: I applied a lot of what I learned at Lerner directly into the strategy behind our six-month anniversary campaign. My coursework in business analytics helped me analyze performance data, understand audience behavior and make decisions based on insight instead of just instinct. At the same time, my marketing classes helped me approach campaigns through a creative lens, especially in how we told the story of Chincoteague and connected with our audience emotionally.
The combination of those two sides – analytics and creativity – shaped almost every decision we made. For example, we consistently evaluated what types of content performed best, which platforms were driving the most engagement and how different audiences interacted with each piece. That analytical thinking helped guide the creative approach, and the campaign ended up outperforming every metric in company history. This was the first time I really felt like I was using both sides of my major at once, and it made the project feel incredibly meaningful.
Lerner: Did you face any challenges during your position? If so, what were they, and how did you overcome them?
Birchfield: One of the biggest challenges was balancing a full academic schedule while working full-time for Seaside. I worked remotely during the week from Newark and then drove to Chincoteague every weekend so I could be on site. It required a level of organization and time management, especially while handling major projects like the anniversary campaign.
I overcame it by staying extremely organized, planning ahead, and making sure communication stayed strong across our team. The workload could definitely feel overwhelming at times, but seeing the outcome of what we created – and the impact it had on the company and the community – made it more than worth it. And when the campaign received international recognition, it really reinforced that all of the long hours and weekends were leading to something meaningful.
Lerner: What are your career plans, and how do you think this role helps move you toward those goals?
Birchfield: I will be starting full-time with Circana, a global consumer insights and analytics company, in January as a Client Insights Analyst on the Kenvue account, working specifically on the Neutrogena brand. Last summer, I interned with Circana on the Nestlé account while also continuing my work with Seaside, which gave me exposure to the consumer packaged goods side of marketing and analytics.
I truly don’t think I would have earned those opportunities without my experience at Seaside or the guidance of Elaine Stitcher, one of the company’s co-owners and a fellow Blue Hen. They gave me a level of responsibility, autonomy and trust very early in my career, and those experiences taught me how to think strategically, lead projects and approach work with both creativity and analytical focus. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunities they’ve provided, and I know the skills I developed there are going to directly support my transition into the insights and consumer behavior side of marketing.