In my free time, aside from unintentionally killing house plants, I love researching underground subcultures that are never featured on Wikipedia pages. On one of these deep dives I discovered the Skate Witches, a fierce group of women from around the world united by their love for skateboarding. 

 

Funnily enough, one month later, I was given a mock client for my Advertising Creative Direction class final, Vans, who wanted to promote their Pro Classics shoe collection. Coincidence or fate? You decide.

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Pairing a weird combination of brand action and testimonial strategies that was somehow crazy enough to actually work, our team used the Skate Witches as a conduit to promote the Pro Classics through a series of social media, OOH, print ads, as well as a 30-ish second commercial. I oversaw the design of the advertisements with existing branding, proposed the integration of strategies, and shot and edited the commercial using archival footage (and bribed my roommate with food to do the voiceover).

 

Creating a commercial during a the pandemic was challenging, but an absolute joy and very rewarding. The best part was finding fresh and creative ways to use the client's branding so that it looked like something Vans would actually produce; a grungy, slightly nostalgic, very SoCal, fuzzy rock promotional campaign for a truly incredible pair of shoes.