Trying to help my daughter's friend..

[recycled sixtie]

My daughter has a friend who is a very talented artist. She recently made a video to enter in a competition to win a scholarship in a distance learning university. The video subject was why you should enroll in this university. I saw the video on Facebook and was thoroughly impressed how professional it was. Next month she will find out if she is one of two winners for the scholarship.

This talent for making videos got me thinking. She does oil paintings and has had her
work displayed in many locations. Why could she not do videos for advertising as she has the talent for it?

I need your thoughts on how she can do advertising videos for large companies? How do you approach large companies to do advertising for them?

Needless to say no pics of her because of privacy. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers, Guy

[Norm K]

Originally Posted by recycled sixtie

Needless to say no pics of her because of privacy. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Given that she posted it on FB, I take it you're concerned with protecting your privacy here (which is understandable) as opposed to hers.

Getting an in-person audience with a direct decision-maker is more challenging today than it used to be. These days, talent identifiers monitor sites like FB, I-gram and Y-tube, watching up-and-comers in many fields, artistic and athletic ones probably more than most.

It's not all that difficult to get email addresses for key people, after which she might send samples of her efforts directly (although many have screeners) to them. Since it's only a few clicks of effort, trying that might be worth a shot.

Phone calls are much less effective than one might hope, although, like emails, it's an easy thing to try ... well physically easy, anyway.

Good luck to this young lady.

_

[stomachmonkey]

You don’t approach large companies.

They generally do not work with or hire directly for these types of services.

They have agencies of record that do the work.

If a Marketer at a large company happens upon a creative whose work they like they call their account manager at their agency and tell them to reach out and manage the relationship.

She needs to get her work shown and known at Marketing / PR / Ad agencies and that’s generally submitting a portfolio.

[unclebilly]

We struggled to find anyone good for 2 years. We have finally found a contractor and their stuff is 8/10.

I think the promo video is passé. It all about the augmented reality now where you scan a QR code with your phone and a message from the president comes up, you can handle the parts or whatever in real time and the image on your phone or iPad is interactive.

[Ayles]

I have worked with absolutely amazing artists in the video game industry. The advertising agency I worked for had great designers but they didnt strike me as traditional artists. Once you are working under the confines of a clients brand guidelines or other requirements it ceases to be art.

[MRM]

No established company is going to hire a starting artist to (learn how to) create a promo video for them, no matter how talented she is. As Tummy Monkey said above, they have agencies for that. If she wants to produce for large companies (or even really to make a living in that field) she needs to develop expertise and make a name for herself so she becomes a known commodity in that industry. That means she needs to either start with an agency or a company large enough to have an in-house production team.

[wdfifteen]

A friends son was in a similar situation. He started out of college as an artist for a fairly large ad agency. It was brutal for 3 or 4 years - they treat their people like a commodity, which they can get away with because so many people want into the commercial art and video industry - but he earned his chops and his next job was an artist for Target stores. By the time he was 30 he was the head designer for Target’s in-store graphics.
Bottom line is she needs to start at the bottom, working for an agency.
BTW this guy is exceptionally perceptive. 10 or 12 years ago he told me he was getting into smartphone app development. Said it was the next big thing. I said, “What’s a smartphone?”

[dewolf]

Tell her to investigate digital art. The digital world is going crazy now over NFT's. You only need to sell a few and you're doing ok.