Online advertising can sometimes be a big deep dark hole, into which you can throw lots of your money. As a novice marketer, you can really end up sending the wrong message.
Lets face it. Poorly executed ads are one of the biggest issues that small business owners face. We know that we need to market online, but most don’t know the best way to go about it. Our client WordStream is taking the guess work out of online marketing.
WordStream is a Boston-based software company, serving the global SMB market, with an easy-to-use digital advertising management platform that makes anyone an expert at driving business from AdWords, Bing, and Facebook and Instagram. WordStream approached us looking to illustrate the problems that might arise for advertisers. That quickly evolved.
We worked with the marketing team at WordStream and determined that the worst thing that can happen when advertising is reaching the wrong audience. Enter Vlad – The Husky Siberian.
The Premise:
Tess is trying to promote her Siberian Husky adoption company. She is surprised when her advertising ends up luring a different kind of audience – a Husky Siberian man looking for a new home.
How We Did It:
It all started with an internal roundtable where we threw out ideas that fit within the client’s RFP. We started playing with homonyms. Personally I love words or phrases that mean two things. That’s when Siberian Husky came to life. We pitched three or four other ideas, but Vlad stuck.
Casting started the same way that it always does, with a casting call. We were feeling pretty underwhelmed until one morning when I was in the office early and saw Chris Gagne’s submission video. I sloshed coffee all over the place jumping up and down – hooting and hollering. The choice was easily made for us.
Pre-production is where these ads begin to take on a shape of their own. For a week or so, pretty much the entire staff walked around talking with our best version of a Siberian accent. Some were better than others, but Vlad came to life the more and more absurd things we said.
We’re lucky to have our own 24 foot cyclorama wall and sound stage here in our New Hampshire office complete with a dedicated lounge and craft services, so production was pretty simple.
Post was the most crucial piece of all of this. We had specific needs for total run time and some rotoscoping that needed to be on point and Will crushed it per usual.
Summary:
These are the kinds of projects that make us come alive inside. Problem solving is the cornerstone of our business and when we get to help a client with that and get to have some fun while we do it, everyone wins.
After we delivered the ads WordStream’s Director of Lead Acquisition, Aaron Doherty had this to say:
“New Sky Productions helped us organize our message in a visual format that makes a great impression from the first frame. They distilled the most important elements of our brand and CTA into a humorous and engaging concept that we’re all proud of. We can’t wait for the next opportunity to work with them.”
So, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you The Holy Grail. A fun ad to produce that left the client happy and will definitely drive eyeballs to their site.
