Down in the Digital Dumps

What a whirlwind of a week!  I've mentioned before that I was taking part in UGA's Digital Marketing Competition, actually it's a requirement to graduate so I was kind of forced into it, BUT it was a really reeaalllly awesome experience overall. Here's the competition rules: They put it on like NBC's The Voice.  So, there's a total of four or five coaches.  These aren't just regular Joe Schmoes either, they are top executives in the field of digital. Each coach had 4 teams, and teams would get eliminated every round until each coach had one team left standing, then all of the coaches teams go head to head for the big prize.  I had a really good team too, we called ourselves Double-Tapped, which was suppose to be a reference to Instagram.  Come to find out though to be 'double tapped' is a shooting tactic of some kind so there's that. Below is a picture of all of the teams from the 'Knockout Rounds' AKA the night Double Tapped got eliminated (hence the title of this post).

The task was to create and execute a fully integrated marketing campaign for Intercontinental Hotels Group, better known as IHG.  More specifically, we were focusing our efforts on rebranding Crowne Plaza, which is owned by IHG.  My team was great.  We spent countless hours at good ole' Jittery Joes downtown brainstorming ideas on what our 'big idea' would be.  We had an interesting team dynamic that seemed to mesh rather well when thrown together.  It took watching a few solid hours of advertising campaigns,  add a sprinkle of daily inspirations, and probably several gallons of coffee until we captured our soon-to-be beloved 'big idea'.

Above is a picture from our pitch presentation. It's a slide I created to look like a landing page. Have you ever heard of a cinemagraph? Me either, until about 2 weeks ago.  Now, I'm constantly looking for new ones to awe at. Ann Street Studio is one of the best cinemagraph sites I've come across (the picture of the man holding onto the steering wheel is a cinemagraph that can be found in the link).  Cinemagraphs are like gifs but cleaner.  They're pictures (probably even ads in the near future) that are ever so suddle in movement (you can't see the cinemagraphs moving in these pictures, so go to the link above to get the idea).

So, our big pitch was on Thursday night. 2 out of the 3 teams left got eliminated, and like I said…we were one of them. Rewind to preparing for the big pitch, I took on the role of creating the graphics and powerpoint for the big night.  

Here's the display ad slide I created.  In presentation mode the picture of the glasses and the picture of the fire on the right would both move, helping to just grab the consumers attention without begging for it. 

One thing has been made crystal clear to me throughout this competition & also something that I think I've always known but never really acted on it, which is that I love to create things.  I have an itch for designing.  Whatever it is, may it be refinishing old furniture, creating graphics, or writing blog posts, I love creating content I guess you would call it.  This epiphany came to be when I got complimented by the coaches on the presentation I had created. I don't think I'll forget that feeling for awhile. It was rewarding to hear that after all of the time I had spent to make the presentation that someone had liked it enough to say so (very cool to hear from someone who has a career doing what you wish to do).  I loved being able to ask questions and gain feedback from my coach and my assistant coach throughout the duration of the competition.  I'm a little bummed we didn't move on to the next round, however I'm so thankful for the experience to be a part of a competition that revolves around a field that I can't get enough of.

Because of the advice I got during the knockout rounds,  I spent my entire Saturday creating and compiling an online portfolio.  I think it turned out nicely. Check it out here.  If you're looking into creating a portfolio, I'd recommend this site.  It's pretty user-friendly after you find your way around it.

Some might say we failed as a team.  We did get eliminated, but I wouldn't go as far to say that we failed.  I'm really proud of the work we did as a team and the work I did as an indivdual. I'll be able to use this experience for opportunities in the future both with my account of the competition and with the people I've met along the way. Thanks for reading, keep on keeping' on,

Carl