The Echo Awards “Echo-Cardiogram” Microsite
My Role: Creative Director. Team Size: 2
The Echo Awards are international marketing awards given out annually, the Emmys of Advertising. Each year, companies compete to design the annual awards website.
I was working as an Interactive Art Director at MRM Worldwide when the pitch competition came in. We submitted our idea and we were awarded the job. Since there was no budget, we only had resources for one Art Director and one Copywriter.
Challenge accepted.
Design and Idea Explorations.
We brainstormed on the word Echo and played on the words until we came up with the “Echo-Cardiogram”. An echocardiogram uses sound waves to produce images of your heart. In our version; an Echo-Cardiogram is a mock exam that poked fun at the advertising industry.
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Our look is monochromatic with a washed out green and illustrations stylized with a line weight reminiscent of old medical drawings.
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We used animation to make fun of the long hours, frustration, and the intangible creativity that make advertising an exciting industry.
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We created a program flow that worked with one of three different avatars:
• Client
• Creative
• Account
Echo-Cardiogram Mood Board
Attract
The goal of the project was to get more submissions to the Echo Awards than in previous years. We decided to focus on the three most likely personas to submit work; Creative Directors, Account Managers, and Clients.
Our email campaign featured a retro style and monochromatic color scheme. We used adult humor to get Creative Directors, Account Managers, and Clients to our site and to ultimately submission work into the contest.
The Echo Awards email campaign
Echo Awards Echo-Cardiogram Program Flow
Final Designs
Video Walkthrough of the Flash Microsite
I illustrated and programmed this project was using Adobe Flash (now Adobe Animate).
Results: The Echo Awards “Echo-Cardiogram” Microsite is a winner!
What began as a pitch turned into a pitch win for MRM. That pitch win turned into the Pro-bono Microsite two of us created to promote the Echo Awards.
We then submitted our Echo-Awards marketing campaign for another advertising award and we won our own award; a Gold Addy Award at MRM.