menu
At SFCM, I designed and managed their social media ad campaigns to help recruit more music students. Below are examples of stills, gifs, and videos I created for the 2020 cycle.
Since the target audience was mainly Gen Zers, I needed to understand their motivations, aesthetic, and behaviors. So I conducted a small focus group with SFCM students, attended a conference about effectively engaging young audiences, and some online research. These findings combined with SFCM's brand distinctives helped shape the content: location (SF), authenticity, and short, attention-grabbing videos and animations.
Before the start of the campaign, the senior designer (Janice Echevarria) and I co-directed a photoshoot. These images were used for the website and other recruitment collateral, including these ads. Our goal was to capture colorful, fun, warm images that gave a glimpse of San Francisco (a huge selling point). All images were taken by Carlin Ma.
As I typed in "Gen Z aesthetic" into Google, words like, "the intentional ugly, 90's retro, nostalgic, old-school collages" popped up. Collages felt like a great way express a lot in an interesting, dynamic way, so I decided to use textures, shapes, and cutouts.
I wanted these ads to be distinct and set a part from other competitor schools. Using the conservatory's gold mark for inspiration, I created a set of shapes/graphics to use in the designs. This gave the campaign a sense of cohesion, recognition, and dyanmism, while expressing some of the brand distinctives.
