Sunday, September 7, 2008

"Death to the Fifty" - Insight and Observations

This is solely my assessment based on my phone interview with NDAC board member Matt Ingwalson.

Purpose: Create an attention getting reminder for NDAC members and other Denver creatives to submit their ingenious ideas for consideration into the annual NDAC "The Denver 50" showcase. Generate "buzz" and alert the intended audience about the event.

Initial concept & approach: Matt(senior copywriter at Karsh\Hagan) and Norm Shearer (Creative Director at Cactus) came up with the original campy script and concept of "offing" the previous year's Denver 50 recipients to make way for the new "blood."
Other considered concepts were more straightforward in their method of presenting the annual show.

Dilemmas & decisions: A small budget and availability of time the team could devote to the project were concerns. Participation was on a volunteer basis and the contributors had to complete the project while dealing with their "normal" workload and deadlines.
Upon consideration of the original script which was set outdoors, the team members from Citizen Pictures suggested the animated cinematic visuals a la "Sin City."
This enabled the live video shooting to take place at Citizen Picture's green screen studio. The subsequent editing and creation of motion graphics remained at CP, an advantageous solution to time and budget constraints.

Distribution: The completed video was shared via web placement on YouTube, the NDAC site, and various design focused blogs including The Denver Egotist. Call for entry emails were sent to members and agencies.

Success: The project definitely fulfilled its mission. It drew attention to the upcoming Denver 50 show. It gained reponses via entries submitted for consideration. It spurred discussions on several blogs about the concept and quality of the video itself as well as additional debate regarding the purpose and value of advertising competitions and showcases. It generated a tongue-in-cheek video response from some creative folks at the Integer Group (under a separate post).

Opinion: Those who don't step up to the bar and contribute do not have the right to criticize, except perhaps in jest, the work done gratis in the service of a community which promotes professional excellence.

8 comments:

300 Spartans Gym said...

I didn't mean my comments about criticism to come off quite so harshly. One of my favorite quotes is that if you don;t like heights, you shouldn't climb mountains. I appreciate Citizen and all the other volunteers who worked on the project. And I appreciate everyone who buzzed about it, good, bad and indifferent. At the end of the day, the video helped inspire 33 agencies to enter the Denver 50 and garnered a perfect five-star rating on YouTube. I'd say it did it's job.

Ellen Jane said...

I don't think your comments were too harsh. My opinion is solely based on my gut reaction to some of the bloggers' points-of-view. It is to be expected and encouraged to incite debate from folks in the creative realm. It would be a boring and stagnant world without it.

Wafa said...

This seems like a really interesting way of promoting Denver talents, but also would have been exceptionally arduous waiting for volunteers. I like this.

黒兎 said...

That was definitely a very interesting advertisement, I think it really does it's job though, even if it's just a low budget kinda advertisement it makes you want to keep watching just to see what is going on in this storyline, you just expect something big to happen when it starts, gotta play on that anticipation angle!

Elizabeth Edwards said...

It is important for us as designers to think of new ways to promote things - this is a good example of them thinking outside the advertising box.

Sweet Herbivore said...

This is what's great about the design world. Everyone is constantly trying to come up with innovative ways to communicate their message and its great that with side project stuff like this you can get as off the wall as you want.

Anonymous said...

Wow, the video was awesome. I think it was very successful.

Ron_C said...

This seems like a unique way to promote local talent. Although the idea of killing and death and dying seems maybe a little negative, it's still effective. Well presented and interesting work.