I’m in the design biz. I’ve done all types of projects, from your standard logos to identity work to packaging to sign systems to even decking out an aircraft with custom graphics. But one thing I hadn’t accomplished yet was a national ad campaign… until now!!!
I work at a place you wouldn’t think does agency-type work, but we do. One of the clients I’ve been working on for the past couple years is the Busch Entertainment Corporation (SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, et al). When they made me creative director a few months back, I mostly inherited a number of in-progress projects from the outgoing one. In addition to this, the cool thing was that we began working with Discovery Cove (a great little swim-with-the-dolphins place in Orlando).
They asked us to pitch on their style guide, we pitched and they loved it. They also asked us to direct a photo shoot (most of their existing shots sucked). I defined a few photo characteristics that would communicate the character of Discovery Cove and hunted for photographers to deliver on them. We got the pretty darn famous John Dolan (johndolan.com) to shoot for us and he did a STELLAR job.
Meanwhile, based on how well we did the style guide, they asked us to pitch for a USAToday ad. (Though we pitched for some Discovery Cove advertising last year, another agency beat us out. The good and bad news is that the winning agency really didn’t deliver with their execution. Well, we were determined to nail it this year. And this time, I would be at the helm.)
When we presented our work, they didn’t go with one of our ads… they went with TWO of the three we showed them!!! And though I was now in role of director, one of the two designs is essentially my layout and headline treatment that the team plussed out. And it turned out not being just a single full-page USAToday buy… it’s a rotating buy in that paper plus nearly FIFTY others, including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Travel and Leisure, etc. etc. Most of which are full- or nearly-full-pages.
To add to this, we were told in very certain, unanimously glowing terms that our work was the best they’ve ever had for Discovery Cove. Though I don’t think our ads are going to win any “Golden Pencils,” but these accolades from our client is worth far far more to me.
If you want to take a look at our work, pick up one of the rags below on the days shown. These are the first insertion orders we got. Many more are coming. By the way… the dolphin photo (the largest image) is the only shot not from our shoot. We had to use the cool-perspective-but-poor-image-quality shots that the prior agency took the year before (we could have done it better).
As a rule, I really don’t cheer myself too often, but this is one time I really want to say, “Yay me!”
New York Times
1/15
1/29
2/12
USAToday
1/12
1/26
2/9
Philidelphia Inquirer
1/15
1/29
2/12
Chicago Tribune
1/15
1/29
2/12
Boston Globe
1/15
1/29
2/12
Atlanta Journal
3/12
3/26
4/9
Travel & Leisure
March Issue
Southern Living
April Issue
Family Fun
April Issue
