So as you (should) already know, assuming you saw my last blog post, I spent March 26-29th in the wonderful New York City. For the first two days, I spent time visiting Graphic Design firms and advertising agencies in the city, and let me just say it was AMAZING. I learned so much! I went to Pentagram (the biggest Graphic Design firm in the world), Google, FCB, R/GA, and Devito Verdi. My favorites were R/GA, FCB, and Pentagram, and I think that’s because they actually showed us examples of the types of designs or advertisements they do and it was very appealing. As far as the marketing and advertising, my marketing Professor would be very happy to hear that they really stressed the importance of “humanizing the brand” and how it really does produce the best designs and advertisements, with the biggest response from customers. I thought it was really interesting to look at their processes starting with why they chose certain things, how they approached it, and how they eventually executed their ideas.
For those of you who don’t know, R/GA’s major clients are Samsung, Beats by Dre, Google, and Nike. Almost all of their clients are Fortune 500 companies. They came up with the ideas for the Nike Fuel band, how to advertise it, and created the design of the app for it as well. They had the idea of Nike + to create new software to get people to buy and use other Nike products, similar to the ways Apple strategically gets you to purchase multiple Apple products, or how they only allow music downloads from iTunes. Thanks to R/GA, Nike went from making shoes to helping people achieve goals and build their connection with their customers. R/GA also worked heavily with Beats to create the Beats music app, and the advertisements of the Beats Pills representing famous celebrities as well as several commercials for the Beats headphones, using famous athletes. The idea behind the pills? They used loud-mouthed celebrities that would attract customer’s attention and be easily recognizable as pills. The Beats headphones commercials were successful because the company jumped into the conversations people were having, about things when certain athletes got traded and faced harsh crowds, using the headphones to tune-out the negativity before a game and focus on what they needed to. It was really interesting to see original ideas on the drawing boards and how they became incredibly famous commercials and advertisements.
FCB similarly jumped into the conversation when they were trying to work on a campaign for Oreo during their 100th anniversary. They decided to create a different advertisement each day, using nothing but Oreos and occasionally a glass of milk or a straw. The advertisements had to do with certain events that happened on those days in the past, like when Jaws was released or when we first landed a man on the moon, or current events like when the new Batman movie was being released. For 100 days, the creative team worked to research relevant conversations about events and created advertisements as part of a campaign that would be represented on social media. It was extremely successful, mainly because they found a way to humanize the brand and jump into conversations that people were currently having. Fun fact: instead of using a food photographer, FCB used a makeup photographer to best show the details of the Oreo cookie, since makeup photographers are best with working with contours, shadows, and small details.
Alright, so I briefly (believe it or not!) explained the main purpose of the trip. So why’d I chose this picture to represent this week’s post? Well, as stated in the title, it’s a reflection of my trip, since I returned a couple days ago. I took this picture during my free time in the city, when I chose to go to the 911 Memorial and Museum. It was around the corner from our hotel downtown, so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to go. This picture is of the edge of the memorial pool, with a rose in one of the people’s engraved names. The building in the back (taking up the left half of the background) is the One World Trade Center, which you can see shows a reflection of the buildings and sky around it in the glass windows, as well as portraying it’s own reflection on the edge of the memorial. Going through the museum was a very sobering experience, reflecting (oh look, there’s that word again) on what happened that terrible day over 13 years ago. As someone who lives about an hour and a half from NYC, and who’s father is a Pilot that flies out of both JFK and LaGuardia airports, I knew several people affected by the attack. Fortunately, my Dad wasn’t there when it happened and he came home from work safe. I was in 2nd Grade at the time, but I still remember the confusion of why kids were being pulled out of class for their parents to pick them up. My mom called the school to have them tell me that my Dad was safe, since she was on the way to the Philadelphia Zoo that day with my younger brother and could not come to the school herself. Anyway, I thought that “reflection” would be an appropriate title for this week, to reflect on my trip and include one of my favorite pictures from this past weekend, when I was able to reflect on that tragic day and pay my respects to the 3,000 people who lost their lives, not to mention the thousands of other people affected.
Overall, the trip was awesome, and although I have been to New York City so many times that I know it like the back of my hand, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to visit some of the best graphic design firms in the world. It was a very worthwhile experience, and it was nice to have some free time in the city as well!
College through a lens 