Creative Talk with art and video director, Alicia Jordan

This week on the Brand Shorthand podcast, Mark interviews Alicia Jordan, our Art and Video Director here at Innis Maggiore. Tune in to hear how Alicia and the agency’s creative department work to bring campaigns to life and to get a behind-the-scenes look into the work we do. Learn more about video production and the design process as Alicia dives deep into her role and some of the projects she's developed.

Join Mark and Alicia for 30-ish as they discuss all things marketing, advertising, and of course … positioning!

Transcript

Mark Vandegrift 
Welcome to another episode of the Brand Shorthand Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Vandegrift, and with me today, we have a very, very special guest, Alicia Jordan. Alicia is our art and video director here at Innis Maggiore, and for this episode, we're gonna ask her some really, really difficult questions to learn more about her role and her specialties that she gets to execute for our clients here behind the scenes as we peek into our creative department. So Alicia, I will let you introduce yourself because you'll do a most beautiful job of introducing yourself. And just give us a little bit of a background on yourself as well as your role here at Innis Maggiore.

Alicia Jordan 
Okay, so as you said, I'm Alicia Jordan. I have been at the agency for over seven years now. And like everybody in the agency, I wear many hats day in day out. We get to work on a lot of cool stuff here. And I really love that. And that's probably why I've been here for so long already. I can't believe it's been so long, but outside of here, I do a lot of hiking with my dogs. I like gardening. I'm not the best at it, but I do it. Yeah, I think that kind of sums me up.

Mark Vandegrift 
Good, well, we always ask our first time guests one of the most difficult questions in the world, and that is, what is your superpower?

Alicia Jordan 
I mean, I would say turning trash into treasure. 

Mark Vandegrift 
Oh nice!

Alicia Jordan 
I think that I sort of excel when I have I'm put into a situation where I need to problem solve. You know, I've there's been a lot of cases where I'm out camping and we don't have the tool that we need. We have to invent a new tool with something you already have. So I don't know. Usually that's my superpower is kind of making it work when you don't have the right assets that you need. So I'd say that's my superpower.

Mark Vandegrift 
That sounds like it could be the start of a new series, like creating a tool out of something you have but you need in order to accomplish the task.

Alicia Jordan 
Well, I think it was kind of done when they did MacGyver. I think that he was truly the of that.

Mark Vandegrift 
That's true. So you're our MacGyver. That's the easy way to, I never thought of you that way. That's awesome.

Alicia Jordan 
Exactly. I try, I try.

Mark Vandegrift 
Cool, well, what's your specialty within the agency, which is also a superpower?

Alicia Jordan 
My superpowers as far as our work here goes are definitely illustration and photography. I have done a lot of work for our clients and for us internally with our camera. And I love creating custom imagery for our various clients because I feel like the imagery can really have a lot of nuance that conveys the brand without, you know, the literal messaging. just adds that extra richness and context to our messages. So I'd say that's my superpower in the agency.

Mark Vandegrift
Cool. Well, you know, we have our positioning that we stand for here and that informs everything that we do at the agency, but we have a very particular creative process. And if you said, you you've been here seven years, which that is hard to believe that you've been here, but we expect you to be here in another 70 years. 

Alicia Jordan 
Did you say 70?

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah, 70, why not? You're only like 17, so that would only make you 87. That would be good.

Alicia Jordan 
Right, you're right, I might last that long. think I hope I can

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah. Hey, by then we'll have some kind of gene therapy and you'll still look today like you look in 70 years. 

Alicia Jordan 
Fingers crossed, I'm hoping for that.

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah. But anyhow, you know, a lot of people think positioning is kind of restrictive because we give the strategy and we try to explain to them, no, it's actually the opposite because creatives don't have to worry about developing the strategy as well as the creative so give us a little bit of insight into Alicia Jordan's mind as to what it looks like when you're handed say a brand new client comes in and we have our positioning report and we go. Here's the strategy what goes through the cogs in the wheel up there

Alicia Jordan
I think that even though I do it every day, it's kind of hard to articulate it, but I'm almost trying to get inside of that brand and embody it in a way. I really want to know its personality. You know, we can say that a client is a leader in their industry. Well, you know, what kind of leader are they? Are they instructional? Are they a mentor? I feel like there's a lot of nuance to how we then express that brand position. The delivery of that, I think has, that's what gives it the personality is how do you approach doing this thing that you're doing? So I think I really just try to figure out who is this company or who is this client? And then how do we convey that feeling of who they are through everything that we do.

Mark Vandegrift 
Do you find that the position, let's say it's reliability or safety or high price, do you find that when it's more specific like that, like an attribute or say a specialist, it's easier to express that position versus leader, which as you've said, that's kind of a broad term. Do you find the more specific it gets, the easier it is for you to maybe like, pick out a visual or pick out something else.

Alicia Jordan 
I think so, definitely. There's sort of an opportunity that arises out of that. It's like, you know that there's kind of something that comes to mind when you think safety, you you're thinking about seat belts, you're thinking about road signs, there's certain things that we associate with different, you know, words like that. So it almost, while it narrows the focus, it also... you know, you get the challenge of how do I say that in a new way? Yeah.

Mark Vandegrift 
So if you take personality and marry that with the position, there's different things with personality like humor and straight-laced and kind of an educator. Like those are different personalities. How do you take that personality that's coming in your head and you're starting to be the brand, right? And marry that to the actual idea that we're trying to get into the mind.

Alicia Jordan 
I think that we're definitely using the personality to emphasize what their position is. So the personality is really just going to convey that in a tone and we're going to pick visual. And, you know, even the way that it's written, everything is going to coincide with that personality and kind of depict that. So, you know, if we have a client that's an innovator, we want to emphasize that with really sleek, modern typography, 3D modeling, you know, it's not going to be something where we take sunny photography out in nature potentially, depending on what the business is. I mean, we do have clean energy businesses. So maybe that works for them as an innovator. But it just, think that's where the personality gets really nuanced is, you know, they can be two, they can be more than one thing

Mark Vandegrift 
So having said that, are there different design strategies or methods that you have to consider when creating work for different media? So when we're talking media, just for our listeners, we're talking newspaper, billboard, social posts. You do a ton on video, for example. So do those different media inform your design strategy or methodology.

Alicia Jordan
Definitely. The media type really impacts how much time you have to tell your story, which affects how you go about telling it. People have expectations when they are experiencing and consuming that media. Like when you sit down to read a magazine or a newspaper, you're really going to sit there and focus on that and sip your coffee. You're sort of in a mindset where you're going to accept a longer form story, which is great if we want to really be very informational or explain a lot of our capabilities, that's the medium that's great for that. Whereas with social posts, you're one of many. People are scrolling endlessly and you can be scrolled past in an instant while they're multitasking at the grocery store. They're not even really in their social media platform. They're kind of half looking at it. Billboards and social posts really call for concise messaging and they're really bold and they're grabbing attention quickly in an environment where they can be easily distracted and the intention can go elsewhere. And I think that's why video is one of my favorite things to work on because it can play to both a quick hit and long form storytelling. Like you can create a hilarious comedic moment in just a few seconds and that's great for social media. Or you can tell some a really heartfelt story that's long form and you can really spend the time and leave gaps where people can, you know, have emotional responses to what you're saying. So it can really play to a lot of different types of media, which I love.

Mark Vandegrift 
That's great. Well, you know, video is one of your first loves, I know, and beyond being MacGyver, but video is even in your title. Walk us through the process of that when you're producing video content for a client and their brand or brands. And, you know, just thinking through that as a process, I can only imagine because you're telling a story.

Alicia Jordan 
Well, I have to give a shout out to Scott our lead strategist, I think and our script and strategy writer extraordinaire he and I like he will bounce ideas around and You know, we'll feel out the overall direction we want to go if we're gonna create a video and a lot of times we have different types of videos we're gonna make so sometimes we will be doing a long form, know minutes of an explanation about a process of how something works, or we'll be doing a 30 second spot. So, you know, we're in the commercial lineup and we have 30 seconds to tell a story. So he usually figures out how to culminate all of our ideas into a script that follows a logical timeline to get us to that message by the end of those short sweet 30 seconds. And once we have that, we usually show that to the client and kind of get their buy-in so that they know what we're going to be working on. And then that content really determines our next steps because sometimes we're in a situation where we're going to need to go out and film. You know, we've had clients that they do work with vehicles or they are public transportation we might go out and actually film those real vehicles, the real workers, things like that. Or we might have an industry where it's prohibitive. We have confidentiality, we have to be mindful of. So in those cases, sometimes we will get stock footage online and find clips that we feel are authentic and genuine to the experience that would be had with that client. And...even some, you know, if, it's not necessarily showing something that's real, you know, maybe we're talking about something conceptual, a lot of times we will illustrate and animate illustrations or statistics, you know, have animated infographics. So really the content of the script is kind of what leads us into the different areas. But a lot of this we can do in house, you know, anything with stock and with animating illustrations, a lot of that we can do here. We usually hire out for filming footage because those guys are experts in the camera equipment, number one. That is a whole other realm that I would love to know more about, but there's a lot that goes into it. And so a lot of times we'll work with those partners too. It just so it really depends on what the script is as far as what all the steps are, but that's kind of, I would think, covers most of our situations that we end up with here.

Mark Vandegrift 
Well, it sounds pretty involved. I mean, you have so many different angles, pun intended, to take to the video. How do you go about, you know, speaking specifically to the client needs and expectations? Because a lot of times clients have a hard time conveying exactly what's in their head. Because I don't know that they actually have something in their head all the time. But how do you balance that with perhaps the vision that you come up with for the creative?

Alicia Jordan 
I feel like the initial meetings with the client are really important for this because the goal is to understand A, if they do have a vision and B, if they don't have a vision, what is the end goal that they want to see? Because if you can come up with something that goes above and beyond and we like actually conveys the message in a more dramatic way or something that clicks even faster than what we're thinking of. You know, if you can get to your own light bulb moment, a lot of times you can just bring that to the client and they will have the same light bulb moment. So it's really about listening in that initial input session with them is, you know, truly understanding what they are hoping to get out of it. And that's, I lean on the account leads a lot for that, obviously, because they have that intimate relationship to sort of hear in between the lines of what they are actually indicating and you know thinking about because they have that established relationship to hear you know sometimes what isn't directly said but what they mean so I think that that that is definitely a huge part of it but also when the creative is that aha moment they feel that too when they when it's on point they feel that

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah, when you, sometimes the difficulty is in working with a new client, right? Because we don't have established design assets, especially if they haven't worked with an agency before, don't have brand guides. How do you go about, let's say you get a brand new design project, let's set aside video for a second, and you get a completely new brand. So, maybe we've even changed the client's name or we've developed a new product, something that's brand new. What are the factors you consider when designing a new identity?

Alicia Jordan 
I definitely lean a lot into research. I definitely want to know everything about the industry as much as I can before I get started because a lot of times something will be born out of that. When I see the tools that are a part of this industry or I see the language, all of that can lend itself to a name or a logo type or even some of the graphic treatments that then surround that brand.

Mark Vandegrift 
You know, part of what we always talk about is, being different. But one of the aspects to the identity is actually conveying the beginning of the differentiated idea that has value to the customer. like one of our recent examples is ReliaRide, right? So I know you didn't work on that one in particular, but
in that very word, reliability comes across, right? So what do you do in terms of, we always say it's not enough to be different because you can have a meaningless difference. If I put a red steeple on a bank, that's different, but it's not going to make you go to that bank unless you really like red steeples and that's a pretty small audience out there. So, you know, how do you get beyond that of just being different from the competition like conveying an aspect of the new identity.

Alicia Jordan 
I think that kind of comes back to personality because each company, you know, the owners and the people working there, they all bring a certain energy to what they do every day. So even, you know, you're looking at two auto parts places, those people that are in that business are, you know, changing that feeling that you get when you're interacting with them. And I think that if you can find that little nugget of authenticity of what sets them apart from the others, you can shine a light on that and then continue to expand on that aspect throughout the campaigns that follow.

Mark Vandegrift 
What would you say is your biggest challenge you face when you are doing design work or video content for clients? And maybe walk us through how you overcome those challenges.

Alicia Jordan 
I feel like there's a different challenge every day in working at the agency

Mark Vandegrift 
Amen, sister.

Alicia Jordan
Right. That's what keeps it so fun though, is kind of trying to circumvent and problem solve every day. So, you know, that's back to my MacGyver energy. I really, I like to solve a problem. I would say in this end, you know, on the creative side, one of the bigger challenges is imagery because sometimes clients come and they have a whole library of images that they've shot over years and years, or sometimes they are launching a new product and so they're still doing test products and they don't actually have a physical sample that they can give us to photograph. So, you know, those can be the challenges like, okay, well, they're going to have to have something to show this off to show to investors or to sell in stores to get that, you know, shelf space. figuring out how we're going to show something that doesn't exist is often a problem. But we usually solve that by doing either a mock up, or we can get 3d renderings done that, you know, show this thing, bring it to life.

Mark Vandegrift 
So when you think about, you know, you aren't always the first person developing the personality or the brand identity because videos sometimes come later. In fact, oftentimes they're an element of something else, whether it's a website or we've already done a bunch of other things and video is, you know, it's a TV spot or it's a, you know, video advertising and what you find is that you didn't necessarily work on that brand internally until you got that project. Now you're relying on one of the other creatives, you know, a Justin or an Emily or Cheryl or Lee-Ann or any of the others. What, how do you work through the collaboration on that to kind of get in their heads to know where the personality was?

Alicia Jordan 
I don't know, I think we all chit chat enough about everything we're working on. I think that comes organically just because we are constantly sharing. You know, this a good example of that is we recently did a bunch of stuff for JDM. And so Justin and Leanne had worked on all the assets up to that. And then I had a commercial that I needed to put together. And so kind of like how I would do with any other client in the research phase. I just basically pour over everything that they've done and I'll even go talk to them. I mean, I know that I chatted with Justin quite a bit while he was developing that website and I knew that it was about looking sleek but also being emotional and connecting on that level of lifestyle and enriching your life with this product. So you know, a lot of that just comes from genuine conversation about, you know, what is the goal with this? And so, you know, I think that when they designed these things, those, I can pick up what they're laying down in a way. I'm feeling those feelings when I'm looking at the brochures and the website. So then figuring out how to convey that emotion, you know, something like the lifestyle feeling you might have in the photograph, something that feels really, you you can tell that they're at peace, the people in the image, they're having a moment that's really genuine and calm. Well, then if I did a really jarring, buzzed commercial where everyone's jumping around, that wouldn't match. So I'm trying to facilitate that feeling with, you know, the slow, maybe there's fades, maybe, you know, we're panning across the landscape or a product.Those are the kinds of things that I'm thinking about. Okay, how does the motion translate into what they've already established here? And that's the kind of stuff that I'm looking at.

Mark Vandegrift 
Good, let's expand that now. So this is working with other creatives, but do you ever have to go outside to, let's say the digital team or to web or to any other different place, different departments we have here. And what does that look like if you're working on a campaign?

Alicia Jordan 
My gosh, this was something that came up pretty recently. I was trying to figure out a like how Snapchat filters work. And, you know, that's something I've interacted with a lot of times, but I don't necessarily know what all it's capable of as a platform. So I had went and talked with Lauren and Alyssa and they showed me kind of the backend of what this is, how we build it. And this is these are some things that we've seen recently that were on the cutting edge because they're experts in that they're very close to it. And, you know, as somebody who just uses it here or there, I'm not seeing all of these capabilities that they're really intimate with. So that was, you know, maybe a month ago that we did that, but I'm constantly asking them, you know, what performs best on social media? What are people clicking on what, and they know all of that. They have the analytics and they can guide me on what I should show or how long I should show it for, you know, they have all of that data and I wouldn't have been able to create anything that requires code without our dev team because that's a whole different language and I did not grow up speaking it, but they, they definitely translate it very well for me so that I can get in there and create web designs and, I definitely couldn't do it without them and Justin. So. I think that's the nice thing is all of us are here and we can just pop over and have a quick chat and I can just say, hey, I really want this functionality on this website or even with our clients, I might be confused about, well, this product, it has these ingredients, but we're emphasizing this one on the front and I'll ask the account lead, why this one? Don't we think, should this other one get emphasized too? I can just pick anyone's brain at any time and we're a conversation away from, you know, having either idea explode out of that conversation or at least guidance back on the right track if I got a little bit off track. And I think that that, you know, it helps us all because then we get a little bit more expertise along the way so we know for next time, but also we don't have to know every single thing. So I definitely like being able to lean on everybody.

Mark Vandegrift 
that's great. Yeah, we were we were on a pitch this morning video pitch and one of the questions came up about growing trends and how we are able to stay plugged into that. And of course, we have 150 clients at any given time. So you have to be out front on all of that stuff. But for you in design or video, what have you tapped into or read about that kind of has you excited right now?

Alicia Jordan 
It's funny because I think that we've seen so many trends over the past few years, like bubble lettering really came back for a while. You know, the younger generations, they loved it. I was just seeing it on clothes everywhere. There's so much stuff like that. So I don't know. I'm always intrigued to see what's coming up. I will say on Instagram and Facebook, I've been getting served like the rest of the world. I've been getting served a lot of stuff about AI and it's crazy how quickly it's learning, but it's still really kind of awkward and strange a lot of the time. But I've been seeing some very interesting animations that almost look CGI. And these are, you know, they're inputting simple phrases like I want to see a sheep walking across a grassy field with hills in the background. And then, you know, I think Adobe Firefly is one that we'll be able to test and see its capabilities pretty easily. But there's a lot of these video AI generators that are coming out and I get served the content and I see it in play. And I think that'll be, I don't know, I definitely want to get in there and test it out and see what it's capable of because you know, you see the sheep come on the screen from the example that I mentioned and it's like, only has three legs, but he's walking as four and you know, his eyes are kind of weird. There's things like that that just, it's not there yet, but I think the potential of what it could do is really exciting. So I want to play with it, but.

Mark Vandegrift
I always loved the AI generated people where like one half of their face is melting. It's like, how can you present that as good quality video? Yeah.

Alicia Jordan 
It's horrifying.The hands always have extra fingers or sometimes they have extra arms. That's the thing is when I get served an AI video on the computer, I'll immediately go to the comments because people will be picking it apart. They're like, how does this guy have three arms? Look, he's got one wrapped around her and one's over here. It's it. They're horrible. They are nightmare fuel. Some of them.

Mark Vandegrift 
It is funny. Well, we always ask creatives, you know, what their favorite project was. Let's narrow yours down because you do so many different things since video again is in your title. What was one of your favorite video projects and why?

Alicia Jordan 
We did a series of 10 commercials for SARTA, which is Stark Regional Transit Authority. And they were just so fun to make because we got to interview riders and bus drivers and fans of SARTA and people that it impacts that aren't even, know, that are outside just the realm of riders and getting to talk to all these people in the community that, you know, just getting to interact with them and hear their stories about their lives and about how an organization really did change their lives, it was just really fulfilling. And then I think that the creative challenge of it was, you know, we would talk to these people for 15 minutes recorded on camera and then be chatting with them outside of that filming time during setup and stuff and so the challenge is how do I convey this person's story in 30 seconds? But it was really enriching to kind of listen to everything they said and then culminate that into, you know, the sweet spot, the little summation that finding that statement that got right to the point. It was just really a fun project and Lee-Ann actually designed. This was an example of collaborating. Lee-Ann had designed all of the print materials for this and so I got to, again, put that into motion and again, it's just a really fun process. I love to do that, to take something that's static and obviously implies a lot of motion and everything with the script typography and the color and the pattern. It's really rich in print but then to take that and be able to build on it more. just a really fun exploration. That one will stick with me for a long time. I really enjoyed that one.

Mark Vandegrift 
That's great. Well, I'm going to give you a question that I am asked almost all the time by intern candidates. I think in college they're telling them, like, they have these set questions and ask them this question or that question. But I think this one's appropriate for you. And it's usually at the end of an interview and I say, you know, do you have any questions before we finish up this interview? And I would say nine out of 10 times it comes up. And that is what's the most exciting thing about your job or working at an ad agency?

Alicia Jordan 
The most exciting thing? I mean, probably just that I never know what is gonna happen on any given day. 

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah. That's my answer. That's exactly what I always say.

Alicia Jordan 
Yeah, I can think of, you know, if I even just think about this year so far, there's been so many unexpected moments where I was like, okay, well, I guess we're doing that today. We're gonna figure out how to do this. Yeah, that's the most exciting part.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, I always finish that up with. And if you get bored in our business, you're definitely in the wrong business.

Alicia Jordan 
Yes, completely agree, yeah.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah. Good. Well, let's wrap up today's episode of the Brand Shorthand Podcast. Alicia, thank you so much for joining us as our very special guest. And hopefully you'll be willing to come back again. It wasn't too terrible. Hopefully.

Alicia Jordan 
I was gonna say, hopefully you'll invite me back, you know? Like, it only gets better from here, right?

Mark Vandegrift
We will. We will. Well, thank you to our listeners for joining us today. And don't forget to like, share with a friend. scream it from the mountaintops, and of course, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. And until next time, have an amazing day.