(Spec) Smartsheet – Social Rework

Smartsheet released this ad on youtube in 2022:

It’s clear that the target audience for this campaign is team leaders and project managers who are looking for a platform to help them manage complex projects.

The Youtube ad does a good job of visually portraying a kind of dead-project Narnia. I remember being taken in by the concept here, and thinking of the many failed projects that could have been added here (smart teapot, emotionally intelligent AI escalator, self-righting football).

However, a couple of days later I saw the accompanying social campaign, and it was a little disappointing. The images were brightly coloured corporate slop and the headlines were uninspiring and empty.

So, I decided to remedy that.

Original

1st Rework

I think this nails the tone of the original Youtube ad, but the imagery is still holding these images back. I decided to scrap the corporate-lite design cues and jump two-footed into the original ad’s visual language.

V2

I’m no designer, so I had a fiddle with some AI image generators and found a visual language that rings true to the youtube ad.

I wanted to match the tone of the video in the copy too. The warehouse manager guy was my go-to for this. His whimsical demeanour and self-awareness is what is needed to grab attention on busy timelines. I’d say he represents the worker who is aware of the process issues, but is powerless to make any changes. He’s funny too. People like funny.

The post copy for each would go something like this:

Image: Bring innovation back from the dead

Post copy: Managing projects without a process is like chasing your tail. Innovation is off the cards and ideas end up being consigned to the the failure warehouse and your team lose morale.

Smartsheet simplifies your processes, making it easier for your teams to start innovating again. Just be careful what you dream up…

Find out more: [LINK]

Image: Rescue your processes

Post copy: Without a dedicated platform it’s easy for processes to go missing. Just like that photocopier idea that Ted from sales had…

Smartsheet simplifies your processes and gives your teams what they need to build consistent and productive habits that help them and their team succeed.

Find out more [LINK]

That’s all for now

If nothing else, this has been a good creative exercise to keep my brand muslces working and to test my AI image generator prompting capabilities. I tried to keep a pretty tight timeline on this, so there’s obviously room for improvement.

I’d like to try contributing more spec work to my portfolio to further boost my skills, but also in a bid to stand out a little more in the competitive creative world, so look out for more of these!

If you want to see anything else I’ve done, spec or real world, head over to my portfolio.