Little Ceasar's and Haunted Houses

One of the first days of our digital portfolio class, we were looking at examples of what digital campaigns are already out there. Little Ceasars' stood out to me the most. In summary, this campaign by ad agency Barton F. Graf 9000 consisted of entering your address on the website, upon which your house became "haunted" by little vector ghosts. Based on your address, you would be directed to the nearest Little Ceasar's location to pick up a pizza and "unhaunt" your house. The vector ghosts squeal "yay!" and disappear. That's it.
This digital idea is so random and has nothing to do with anything, but it works. Really well. It's clever and funny and I could see this idea prompting lots of people to go pick up a Hot-n-Ready from Little Ceasar's. It's just so interesting to me  how sometimes an ad campaign can be focused around an idea that has so little to do with the product, yet it's clever and brilliant enough to work. Ideas like this go against almost everything we've been taught in advertising classes at UT. It just goes to show how subjective this industry really is.

Are we ever satisfied?

In my ICM class on Monday, my professor was speaking on the topic of creative strategies. Since this is now my third semester in the sequence, most of what she talked about was redundant of the lectures I've countlessly recieved in my portfolio classes, but there was one thing she said that I found particularly interesting- "creatives are never satisfied with their own work."
I can't speak on behalf of all the other creatives I know, but from my own experience there is definitely a lot of truth to this. After I finish executing an art direction for one of my campaigns, I'll find myself staring at the computer screen for about twenty minutes trying to find something else to fix. Eventually I send pictures to my campaign partner and am only satisfied after getting their approval.
I could go on and on listing all the experiences I've had where this statement applies, both in and out of the creative sequence. I believe this statement could easily apply to anyone, not just creatives. Your biggest critic is always yourself. I've been trying my best to get out of this mindset so as not to feel discouraged when I'm not completely happy with the way something turns out, and that's why I love being in the creative sequence so much- even when I feel discouraged or not certain whether what I art directed works well with the campaign, I have a room full of peers in the same position and we are all willing to help each other out.

Trial and Error

When it comes to art directing campaigns, it's inevitable that you'll learn the hard way how to go about it. Being in the creative sequence, I've done my best to make sure each campaign I art direct has a different and unique style from anything else I've done, which usually means I'm teaching myself something new on photoshop or illustrator every time I start a new campaign. The hard thing about this is sometimes I'll have a vision in my head of how something should look but no idea how to go about it.
The best example I can think of is the Burt's Bees Beeswax Lip Balm campaign I recently art directed for P3 Midterm Critique. My partner David Bassine and I wanted the art to slightly resemble illustrations in storybooks (think Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol). I spent hours upon hours asking other art directors for suggestions and googling everything from "storybook illustrations photoshop tutorial"to "line art tutorial" before I accepted that there wasn't anything out there that could help me create the art exactly how I saw it in my head. In the end, I used bits and pieces of each of these tutorials to get the illustrations to look just the way I wanted. After that, the rest of the prints came together easily.
Basically, the point of this story is that no matter how long it takes to figure out the art direction, power through. Once you figure out the first one, the rest are easy because you have the strategy down. The final result of our Burt's Bees campaign we can be found by clicking here.

Despicable Me 2 Interactive Screen

There's something really cute about using interactive screens to connect with a user. No matter how old we are or how much we don't want to admit it, we all want to play on them. Even if whatever the interactive screen is has nothing to do with you, you're gonna be intrigued and play on it a little anyways. Or you're at least gonna want to. This is something that isn't seen as often as most other forms of advertising, but it's gradually increasing it's presence.
For the digital creative agency TVGla, promoting the movie Despicable Me 2 involved the use of such screens. They were placed in malls across Europe, and gave shoppers the opportunity to customize the actions of the lovable yellow minions in the movie using your smartphone. The fanbase for this film falls within a younger demographic, so this campaign targeted kids and parents.  Even if you've never seen the movie ( I haven't), everyone knows who the minions are and is going to find an interactive screen like this interesting, possibly enough to give it a try.

TNT Digital Campaign

This digital campaign that TNT did cracked me up. The agency responsible was none other than Duval Guillame. I linked to the video, which you can access by clicking here, but here's a brief summary of what goes down: In order to target fans of drama shows on television, a button was placed on a seemingly ordinary looking street in Belgium. The button that says "Push to add drama." When pushed, a series of ridiculous events occur almost immediately, and once its all over a giant banner rolls down from the side of a building with TNT's logo and it's signature tagline, "We know Drama." That summary doesn't even begin to do this campaign justice, the video below is definitely worth watching. Much like the previous post I did about Mercedes' invisible car, the reactions of bystanders is priceless. The cool part of this idea was that it took place on a quiet ordinary street in Belgium, where nothing particularly interesting happens. It sends the message that TNT can add some drama/ excitement to your everyday life, and it definitely caught peoples' attention.

Mercedes Invisible Car

While looking for some digital inspiration, I stumbled across a seriously awesome campaign by Jung Von Matt agency for Mercedes' new f-cell vehicle. They were trying to market their "most innovative drive technology," and found a really awesome way to do this. In this digital campaign idea, Mercedes was promoting their new fuel cell vehicle to increase awareness about it's minimal environmental impact. This idea reached out to adults that can afford luxury vehicles and are environmentally conscious. Minimal environmental impact was key feature to communicate in this campaign, and they did so by covering the car in screens and parading the car around Germany. A camera on one side of the car was connected to the screens so that the car appeared to be invisible. The idea was to showcase the vehicle's "invisibility" to the environment through this digital idea, and making the car appear to be invisible was a clever way to show this. There is a link to a youtube video showing how that made this possible that can be accessed by clicking here. The best part is seeing everyone's reactions.

Discouragement

I have something kind of important to say.
First off, this post goes out to anyone in the Texas Creative sequence, anyone who wants to be, and anyone involved in advertising. Mind you, I just got home from celebrating the graduation of a few close friends (not including myself- yay five year plans and victory laps!) but just being in that environment, surrounded by my peers who are about to be forced into the real world, I felt inspired to blog. Even if it's 2 a.m., what I have to say is really important, so listen the hell up because the next sentence I type is the most crucial part of this post.
Things are going to suck sometimes. That's just how it works. You're gonna work your ass off making something you're proud of, and then you're gonna be lectured on everything that's wrong with it. Whether its final critique in the creative sequence or it's an interview for an advertising internship, it's impossible to please everyone. I'm living proof of this. I worked like crazy on my four campaigns for P2, and all I have to show for it is a score of 6/10 at final critique. Yes, it's a little discouraging, but I'm finally starting to learn that it's okay.
I lied when I said earlier that this goes out to anyone in creative or in advertising. I'm really just trying to reach out to anyone who's ever felt like they aren't good enough, or anyone who has ever felt discouraged in their major, no matter what it is. The last thing I want to do is get all Disney-channel on you, but I have to for a second- DON'T GIVE UP. Just don't. You have so much time ahead of you to fix your mistakes and make things right. Hell, I've got only one more year to prove I'm good enough before I'm unwillingly whisked into the world of stress and unemployment, but you can bet your ass I'm gonna work like crazy to make it in advertising. I'm not gonna lie, the road to determination was not easy to find. I even convinced myself that I was in the wrong major at one point, but I'm starting to realize I was just making excuses. My score at critique may have been a low blow to my confidence, but the e-mail confirming I moved on from P2 to P3 in the Texas Creative Sequence reminded me of everything I've worked so hard for. There's still time to make new campaigns and improve the old ones, it's not even close to over. Things are about to change, and I'm gonna make sure of it.