NSAC Advertising Campaign: Tinder
Building a fully integrated ad campaign for Tinder to raise awareness and brand love amongst their Gen Z users
TOOLS
Adobe CC, Figma, Slack
METHODS + SKILLS
Project Management, Creative Ideation, Leadership, Graphic Design, UX Design, Event Design
AWARDS
Special Judge’s Award + 4th Place @ NSAC Nationals
1st Place @ NSAC District 14 Regionals
DURATION
Aug. 2020 - April 2021 (9 months)
TEAM
Labiba Amyeen, Katie Marr, Kyle Wonzen, Amy Chen, Jasmine Zheng, Annie Pan
ROLE
Director (Project Manager)
overview
Tinder approached us with the task of creating a fully-integrated B2C ad campaign to cultivate brand love and increase awareness for Tinder amongst Gen-Z. Our team conducted market research, delved into brand strategy, and utilized our findings to ideate creative marketing and experiential executions.
The design department was crucial in bringing these ideas to life through high-fidelity assets and an award-winning final pitch deck. We place 4th nationally with a special award from the judges at Tinder for our use of earned and paid media strategy.
DISCLAIMER: Due to NDA restrictions, I will not be able to release the entirety of our case but I will be walking through my personal approach to leadership during my time as design director.
some context, before we dive in…
what is NSAC?
The National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC), hosted annually by the American Advertising Federation (AAF), challenges teams all over the U.S. to create fully-integrated, multimillion dollar, marketing campaigns for corporate partners. Campaigns are judged end-to-end on all aspects from strategy to design.
what is imagiCal?
ImagiCal is the premier student run creative strategy agency at Berkeley, as well as Berkeley’s official chapter of the American Advertising Federation. We have 35 members, each of whom play a vital role in the team’s success.
imagiCal structure
Each of our club members are put into 1 of 5 departments: Strategy, Creative, Public Relations, Media Planning and Design. Each department has its own unique functionality. Each department has 4-5 consultants + 1 director (team lead).
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Strategy
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Creative
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Public Relations
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Media Planning
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Design
the design department
AKA the production department. The primary function of the design department is to create all design collateral for the campaign. This includes everything from UI/UX design, to print + layout design. Our key deliverables are a 20-page plansbook (detailing the entire campaign), video advertisements, mock-ups, budgeting spreadsheets and the final pitch deck.
leadership principles
Be organized.
Organization + planning are key to being a good leader and keeping the club as a whole on track
Be a mentor.
As director, I strived to give back to the design community + serve as a resource for my design babies.
Be fun!
A big part of making sure individuals to the work (especially in a virtual environment) is creating a fun environment to work in.
the journey
To best understand this process, I’ve laid out the timeline of this project from the perspective of design. It’s important to note that this does not include all of the work being done by the other departments that are doing on simultaneously.
THE PROBLEM
Historically, imagiCal teams have had little to none cross-functional collaboration throughout the NSAC process (shocking, given the nature of our work). This leads to a linear workflow that leaves the design department backlogged and facing unnecessary pressure at the end of NSAC.
THE GOAL
How might we (technically, I) leverage my role as design director to build a more efficient NSAC process to ensure a smoother run for the design team + a more collaborative work system for the entire organization.
KEY EVENTS
recruitment: {the foundations}
Recruiting a good team was the first and most crucial step in being a successful leader + having a successful team. Having good design team was important in order to make sure they could all work together
Qualities to Look For:
Social fit!
Creative problem solving > technical skills
Assertiveness
Ability to take criticism and think critically
workshops + mentorship: {strengthening my team}
Professional Development Workshop w/ Guest Speaker Ryan Nguyen
When I finally recruited my team, I ended up having design babies with a range of skill sets + experience.
Building The Team:
Play to my consultants’ strengths
Use the fall semester to fill in technical “gaps” via workshops
Provide professional development opportunities (remember - this is meant to be a learning experience for my babies)
the central file system: {building my toolkit}
Prior to my time as design director, imagiCal had no centralized system for file storage. This made for a lot of chaos and disorganization, which is very contradictory to my leadership principles and goals as director.
The Revamped Toolkit:
Centralized Design GDrive
Created Adobe CC shared library for design assets
Utilized Adobe Xd as primary collaborative platform for designers
Created master living document for copywriting to ensure that all departments are aware of the work being done other departments
Design Master Document in Adobe Xd
new practices: {creating cross-functional spaces}
As Design Director, I reworked the entirety of imagiCal’s workflow to accommodate a more collaborative + iterative environment. I was inspired by iterative nature of the HCD process.
New Practices:
Design Shadow Program
Joint Design + Copy-writing Sessions
Collaborative Interdepartmental Pods
A very tired design team wireframe sprint
REFLECTION
I got very stressed. But that’s okay!
The NSAC process was unexpectedly extremely emotionally taxing for me - but it taught me my limits when to stop working
Having to detach personal worth from work.
Being in charge of all of the tangible campaign materials, I felt a personal attachment to the work and had to learn to detach my self-worth from the work.
Cross-departmental miscommunication.
Making different departments understand each other’s work was a lot harder than expected.
tribulations.
{struggles + obstacles I faced}
Hard work doesn’t go unseen.
While at times I felt that my work was unappreciated, at the end of the day, the team definitely recognized my contributions.
Lean on others.
Along with being teammates, the imagiFam are also my closest friends. We’re all struggling together and it’s paramount that we support each other.
Collaboration requires listening.
In order to help facilitate collaboration, I had to listen to each department separately + consolidate my findings
triumphs.
{things I learned along the way}