Creative Brief Meeting – 15th Street Station Domination
I am doing an internship with the Office of Strategic Marketing and Communications at Temple University. On Tuesday I attended the Creative Brief Meeting for the upcoming 15th Street Station Domination which will coincide with when the Pope is here in September. This will include platform posters, station kings and wrapped turnstiles. This was the first time I was invited to attend one of these meetings. In attendance was the Senior Director of the Creative Team, the Creative Director and Brand Manager, the Graphic Designer who will head the project, the Production and Traffic Coordinator, and the Advertising Manager.
The Advertising Manager ran the meeting and the Production and Traffic Coordinator chimed in when it came to questions on specs and time frames. During the meeting, things like previous advertising, audience, messaging and imaging use were discussed. It was decided that 4 different messages/designs would be needed for the platform posters and 2 different messages/designs for the station kings. The turnstiles would need to be kept generic since the only good space for messaging is on the sides that you walk through. With part of the audience being international and from out-of-state, it was decided that one of the designs would focus on Temple’s rankings with the idea that this would be appealing to people unfamiliar with Temple University. Philadelphia touristy images would be okay since that is what would be recognized by outsiders. With the short time frame, it would be okay to repurpose what is being used for the Cecil B. Moore takeover in August for the other designs since the audience most likely will not overlap at all.
From the meeting the team was formed, the brand message was established, the call to action was decided, and a time frame was agreed upon. I hope I am able to see the advertisements all installed once they are up.
One interesting thing that was discussed and which needed be kept in mind when designing the two and three sheets for the platform posters is bonus time. It was said that Septa will actually keep up your advertisement until they have a new company buy advertisement in that space. So, it is possible that the next client would only buy one of the sheets rather than all 3, leaving 2 of your 3 sheets up for longer than expected. For this reason, it would be important to have each sheet be able to stand on its own. So, for the 3 sheets, the designer will make sure that the Temple T is present on one sheet and the call to action would be on another sheet. The Production Manager would then make it clear to the media company that they would like those sheets kept up and the 3rd be the one that is replaced if this instance were to occur.
Another interesting thing I learned is what proof of placement or POP is. This is a photo that is sent to us by the media placer that shows the advertisement installed in the space. Not all companies provide this without you asking for it. It is good to request these POP’s because then you will have them to reference in the future when placing similar advertising in those spaces and also in those types of media buys.
My days in my internship are coming to an end. I am 9 months pregnant and will not be able to continue working here once the baby arrives. I wish there was more time to get my hands into more that goes on in the Office of Strategic Marketing and Communications. I feel like I just started to be included in larger projects that would have been beneficial to see all the way to the end. I was able to meet many people in the office with various titles and job descriptions. I hope that I made a positive impression on the people that work in the office. I actually enjoyed working on the traffic and budget side and would consider applying for a job in that field when I am ready to come back to work.
