Thursday, October 23, 2008

Talking Strategy with Steve Whittier



































THE MAN from Factory Labs and Stella Yu, the client, are fielding questions from the students. This is a really cool opportunity for these students (man, if you're not here you're missing out! Okay I'll lay off the guilt trip).

Anyhoo, the students are getting a real life lesson in strategy from Whittier. He and I were chatting about how when he was a student everybody was making posters of Robert Plant, and now everybody wants to make posters like Shepard Fairey. Students get a lot of pretend projects in school but he's here making it real for them.

Part of the brief is about visibility for the client, Art Street. The students could very well make posters and flyers and all kinds of rock'n'roll wanna be artifacts, but does that bring in dollars? Because Art Street also needs dollars to keep afloat. Whittier's challenge to students is to find a way to reach and convert just a few who can get excited about Art Street and write the big checks. Finding kids to get excited about the programs is easy. Getting the benefactors to notice and get involved is another thing.

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