Creative Advertising students to present capstone presentations May 5 on Facebook Live

Media Arts and Design
 
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By Jessica Kronzer, staff writer

SMAD’s senior-level Creative Advertising students will present their capstone projects — compilations of advertising designs and components for real brands — during a Facebook Live premier at 8 p.m. May 5 on SMAD’s Facebook page.

Dr. Talé Mitchell’s SMAD 443 class formed teams to create deliverables — such as print, social media and TV ads — to promote an actual brand, but one that is not highly advertised.

Mitchell’s students chose from 75 brands and acted as though they were an advertising agency to create a “comprehensive campaign.” Groups starts with primary and secondary research, which can include “surveys, interviews, focus groups, [or] ethnography observation,” before producing a creative brief.

The brief explains their concept and their target audience. Students draw up prototypes and then package the final designs to present as “flip books.”

With the project, students are doing all the work for a campaign, including research and production that would typically be done in separate departments of an agency.

“This gives them opportunity to see what different departments might do in the agency and refine what they want to do in their job search,” Mitchell said.

Students make three magazine print ads, a TV commercial, two social media ads (one for a well-known platform and another for an up-and-coming platform), two out-of-home ads (like a billboard), a branded product placement and a guerrilla marketing advertisement.

Devon Smith, a senior Creative Advertising concentration student, worked in a group that created a campaign for Bench Urbanwear, a clothing brand. Her group’s design is largely focused on photos and being “minimal, simplistic, [and] modern, because it's supposed to be for the 24/7 active lifestyle.” The guerilla ad is a mock-up of a design that could be printed onto a bench in Central Park, New York.

“It draws attention,” Smith said. “It's like public artwork.”

Smith said her biggest lesson throughout the project has been working on communication with her team.

“I love SMAD because they really emphasize that team effort and that group work,” Smith said. “Mitchell’s class has been phenomenal in being a group.”

Another group worked on a campaign for the fast-fashion brand Zara. Paige McKenzie, a senior Creative Advertising concentration student, said part of the reason Zara doesn’t avertise more is to maintain exclusivity. So the group chose to play into that exclusivity in their design’s tag line: “Dress for Tomorrow.”

“We're really hoping that our audience takes away a feeling of being prized as a customer, as well as getting those sneak peeks into those limited seasonal drops from Zara,” McKenzie said.

Working with her group has been McKenzie’s favorite part of her capstone because of the group member’s dedication to the project. She said she particularly enjoyed the production phase because of its collaborative nature.

“Being able to really have that streamlined, integrated marketing campaign that we've been working and learning so much about has taught me a lot,” McKenzie said. “It's made me feel really confident in my major as well.”

Mitchell said some of her past students have landed jobs after showing their projects to potential employers. She said she hopes the projects help students feel more comfortable in their job searches and interviews.

“What they need is confidence, and I feel like when they have this final project in their hand, they're very proud,” Mitchell said. “They have confidence to say, ‘Hey, I can do this.’”

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Published: Thursday, April 29, 2021

Last Updated: Thursday, November 2, 2023

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