So as part of my uni course (Advertising and Commercial film Production) I am to create a commercial for Stoke-on-Trent's ceramics company, flux. The whole thing is out of my comfort zone by a mile, I mean, I am not into ceramics, and there is no way that I am the target audience for the brand, making this a very hard challenge for me. But like me, I love a good challenge, and I believe that without rain you don't get rainbows, rain being my lack of enthusiasm for pottery.
As I had come up with some research into the competitors, I was very much inspired by Whittards of Chelsea's promotional material for their ceramics and homeware brand. Their campaign was about 'The Tiger who Came to Tea.' Which gave me a certain spark to do something surrounding the whole idea of tea with a friend, and childhood antics. The initial concept was there, and my enthusiasm for the project started to grow as I brainstormed how I could incorporate those themes into this project for a 'quintisentially english' client.
Of course, the brand have much more contemporary and versatile designs and so I haven't even touched upon the 'grans dining room' side of tea with my friends. And so, through script development, and pitching my proposals to the managing director, I grew more confidence in my idea and began to become IN my comfort zone.
A week or so later, I was to pitch my initial idea to the bosses of the company, over in belgium, via skype. The most terrifying moment of my life. I have so much determination to become part of the advertising industry, and I have been in face to face meetings with clients back in my apprenticeship days, when I sat in with my project co-ordinator and was encouraged to have input in the meetings.
Maybe I was scared because I've never had to come up with an idea on my own, maybe it might have been me fretting over the skype connection, or maybe I was terrified that my idea would be rejected by the single most important people in my uni life so far. Yep, that last one.
The pitch went on with my peers, and it came to me, and surprisingly, my nerves didn't get the better of me, and my pitch went very smooth and they seemed to enjoy my idea and gave me some pointers on how to round it off at the end. They were so lovely, not scary at all.
I found the feedback from my peers and staff was so vital in boosting my confidence about this project, I feel like I've stepped out of one comfort zone and sort of glided into a completely different one all together.
And that was my rainbow. Well so far.
