Last week we pitched a few campaigns, inlcuding this one. The Department of Public Works went with the campaign direction which uses positive peer pressure, thanking the “many” of those recycling used motor oil and informing them their filters should be recycled as well. Hopefully, those who don’t recycle their oil will think, “Oh, recycling used motor oil’s the norm? I should do it too.” After presenting the comps we found the stock photography we used were way too expensive, so they had me shoot it. I was a bit nervous at first but as everything came together I got comfortable. After a full day of burning in the sun and racing with the shadows for light, I feel good about the results, especially the second shot. We all got a good laugh after comping it because it looked like the guy got ran over, I made sure when I shot it, that didn’t happen. See images below for the befores and afters.

Below are my shots before the post filters to give them that retro look.

Pacific Service Credit Union just opened a new branch in a smaller community in northern California. Since then we’ve created some direct mail and other print ads promoting their arrival. The concept behind the whole campaign is thanking the neigborhood for being so welcoming and how PSCU is here to be just as helpful. This was the spot we created.

Our third Point-of-Purchase campaign for Mission Federal Credit Union, at AdEase (See below for first two seasons). We definitely wanted to keep with the overall visual language set by our Winter and Spring designs but wanted to add more color/fun to this one.

So let’s start with the overall goal of this project. MFCU has various posters and signage in all of their branches which we have been refreshing every season. For the summer they wanted to highlight six products; mortgage loans, term certificates, e-checking, auto loans, home equity lines of credit and visa credit cards.

We narrowed the strategy down to “Endless Summer” and let the copy writing and design take off from there. I chose to unify the campaign, visually, by creating a kind of surreal setting. For each ad, I chose to caricature the sky by replacing it with a graphic which was then given a strong color theme. These colors were inspired by the different moods the sky goes through as the day goes on during the summer.

This is proof that good advertising makes a lasting impression. The ending has such a surprising twist, the first time I saw it I might have said “Oh SNAP!” Mind you, “snap” wasn’t being used then but this commercial was so good, I just said it.

Since its debut in 1987, the son’s infamous final line is still being used today… at least by me and my buddies. It’s the perfect line when caught doing something we might feel guilty about; eating a whole pizza, playing video games until the sun comes up the next morning or getting your 5-year-old niece to fetch you a beer at a party. Good times.

The reason I bring up this oldie-but-goody is a friend of mine (not from this country when it first aired) didn’t get it when I used the line one day. If you have any loved ones who have not experienced this, please, gather them around the computer, turn up your speakers and teach them the lesson of a lifetime.