Shameless Self Promotion
The Strategy
“Advertising will demonstrate to potential employers that Sam is a team member who works from start to finish. Support will be Sam’s willingness to commit to a project and follow through. The tone of the advertisement will be lighthearted and dependable.”
Development Process
Promoting yourself is a difficult task. In order to sell me, I approached this like an elevator pitch. What can I say in thirty seconds or less that would leave the impression I want. I identified some of my strengths as well as my weaknesses first. Even when I’m not the best designer, copywriter, or most creative person in a room but when I do something I see it through to the end. I wrote this ad entirely around what I think is my biggest strength, my commitment.
I pictured a block party as the best analogy to convey commitment and follow-through. In the ad, I take on three roles of the party. In the background, I’m standing on a step ladder setting up decorations and laying the groundwork for the party. In the center of the ad, I’m standing with my “neighbors”, as a part of the team. In the foreground, I’m carrying out garbage bags, cleaning up after seeing the party through.
In this ad, I repeat the same message again and again. Reinforcing the idea that Sam is there from start to end. I liked the alliteration of using my name with phrases like “Sam sees it through” but I decided to use “Send in Sam” as both the heading and tagline. “Send in Sam” not only tells the reader that Sam sticks around but he is willing to do the dirty jobs and help wherever he can.
The Execution
If you couldn’t tell, my mock-up of the ad is almost entirely photoshopped bits and bobs. Once I had my copy document flushed out I drove around taking pictures of fields, my roommates, and myself to put into this image. The rest of the images I found combing the internet for royalty-free stock images. I did the best with what I had at the time.
My biggest challenge creating the visual was 8.5″ x 11″ is not as much space as I had thought. I was dead set on having three stages of me but fitting in three other people and leaving room for copy forced me to get creative.
I created the background image in Photoshop after hours of tediously shifting the same things around over and over. Then I moved to InDesign to have better control over the copy.
My two main sources of inspiration while constructing this ad were old BASF and Got Milk ads. The largest chemical producer in the world, we don’t buy BASF products directly as consumers but they run big campaigns about who they are and what they do. Following BASF’s lead and using Got Milk’s format of white narrow text at the bottom of the ad, I left my website address as a means for potential employers to get a better sense of who I am and what I offer.
