This project pushed me in way I could never see coming. I was initially tasked with creating website banners to market 10:9 Design LLC during one of the most watch spots on our local station "Football Friday Nights". I was asked to think outside the box and present ideas in front of a marketing manager that could have be taken as ridiculous.
Four days before the due date, our marketing manager was notified that the newscast company would be unable to complete the commercial for 10:9 Design LLC for another few weeks. As a result, I was tasked with creating a full commercial (which I had never done before) in place of the one promised by the newscast company. The condition on this task was I was still required to complete my normal job while creating the commercial.
So, where to start first?
The Message
The first step was trying to figure out what the message would be. We were in the middle of a pandemic and every small business in Abilene was having to look inwards and protect their own assets to try and out-last the resulting economic struggles. As a business, 10:9 Design LLC was already trying to break the trend and reach out and help out the community and other businesses. A campaign called #BigCountryStrong was started by the owner to print t-shirts with a local companies' logo on it. From these sales, half the profits came to 10:9 Design LLC and the other half of the profits went to the other company to help provide another stream of income for them. In this way, 10:9 Design LLC was still getting profits to stay open but was also able to provide other businesses with a secondary income to help them stay open as well!
So my crazy idea? Spend a lot of money on a marketing campaign that rarely said our name or had our logo on it, but instead push attention to all local small businesses that need help and ask the community to come together and support local first. Don't drive people to us, but instead drive clients to support all small businesses in Abilene.
The marketing manager loved it!
So, we have a message! Now what? With a deadline that was less than a week away, I had a lot of work to get done and a very short time to do it.
The Creative
I was then tasked with figuring out how to make this message come through to every member of the Abilene community no matter what part of our marketing they are seeing.
At this point, the marketing manager has created the copy for the ads. I decided that we should use as many real photos of our community as possible to visually drive the point home that we need to support Abilene and our surrounding small businesses.
I had start putting together some mockups of the banners and layouts when I get told that I needed to create a commercial as well. The news station that was going to create the commercial is over booked. As a company, we wanted a commercial that featured several local businesses as well as showed as much Abilene pride as possible within it. So, with three days left before everything was suppose to be turned in, I was tasked with both creating a 30 second commercial and finishing all other creative for this campaign.
One Thing At a Time
At this point, everything else stopped and my whole world revolved around this campaign. I decided that the best plan of attack was to start with the script of the commercial, then get the banners set for images, and finally go take video and photos of the community. My hope was as that point I could then edit everything and get everything submitted on time.
Thankfully, it worked like a charm. The marketing manager and I got a script written and outsourced for a voice over. Then I prepped all of the banners and began filming.
Filming and Photography
Up to this point, the most I have ever done with film is some small home videos and interviews. I felt like I was thrown into a fire. I developed a timeline of what I wanted to video and where I wanted to film at. I then started emailing and calling businesses that has previously worked with 10:9 Design LLC to get permission to come and film their business for this commercial.
I received several responses with positive feedback and decided to run out the door and start filming. This was a mistake: I went out and filmed everything without planning for specific camera angles and motion. I went back to edit and found that I had wasted an entire day of filming. Nothing lined up and nothing looked good together. I had to go back out and re-film almost the entire commercial. This was a very humbling moment for me. It slowed me down a lot, but also helped me gain confidence in what I was doing. While I had messed up and lost a day, I got a sense of peace because I could finally see that I could do it. Even though the video I got was not good, I found the shots I wanted to get and developed a filming list to make sure nothing was missed. On the next attempt, I filmed at all of the correct angles and motion, as well as finished getting the photos of all of the places in town that I wanted to use on the banners.
I was almost there, but I still felt that I was missing the one special shot.
The Waterfall Shot
In downtown Abilene, there was a recently refurbished waterfall display. This display sent water out of pipes at different moments and as the water falls, it creates images and words. They had just finished the work on it and were running tests to see the uses for this waterfall display. I knew that this waterfall would be the shot to wrap up the commercial, as it would fully bring the commercial up to date by including a new piece of Abilene's downtown scene. It would also be the first time the waterfall was officially used.
I originally wanted to put the 10:9 Design LLC logo in the waterfall with the words "Support Local". However, I was told that the waterfall is not allowed to have business logos put on it, so I had to improvise. I decide to turn the entire project on its head and make the catchphrase "Abilene Supports Local": a call to action for the people of Abilene to support their local business! While this pushed the overall message even farther away from 10:9 Design LLC, it still keeps the message focused on all small businesses of Abilene.
At last I found my final shot!
It All Coming Together
I spent the next day editing and finalizing everything we needed for the commercial and banners. I sent everything out to my managers and with some slight tweaks, got everything in on time.
Below are the approved banners and commercial made for the campaign. Enjoy!
Small cellphone banner
Square banner for website ad boxes
Large banner for webpage ad boxes
Commercial for Football Friday Nights
The Results
This ad campaign was seen by all of Abilene. It spurred the community to go and support local businesses. As for 10:9 Design LLC, we got more business from this campaign than we had ever gotten from previous campaigns. We had advertising agencies asking who created our marketing materials. We gained attention from another news station that we now do business with.
This ad campaign helped launch 10:9 Design LLC out of the slump of COVID!
