another thing we’re never gonna do (or are we?)
Once upon a time, the CVWmedia team had a running joke. We’d say, “There’s another thing we’re never gonna do!” when coming up with random ideas. It’s a reference to an old Saturday Night Live sketch and a nod to the fact that we had important work to get back to.
But guess what? Sometimes we did—and do—make time for trying our crazy ideas out. I recently dug through the CVWmedia archives and emerged with some of my favorite brainstorms and experiments from over the years.
The first is a commercial concept based on real events that happened to yours truly.
And yes, it did sting me on the lip, yes I flipped over backwards in my pool lounge, and yes I managed to save the tasty beverage and later enjoyed every drop.
Then there’s the time we developed an iOS app to find out how that process works…
…and the time we got together for a weekend to put together an ad campaign one of my coworkers wanted to pitch to a video game website…
…or when we messed around with cinemagraphs.
Back when “digital signage” was brand new and primarily found only in sports arenas, convention centers, and casinos, we briefly created a new division of the company.
We once animated a cute cartoon that paired learning some new software with our favorite topic, dogs.
And when our beloved Nathan Moss left CVWmedia to serve our country, we sent him out with hypothetical branding for his home brewing hobby.
For the last two pieces, I’m going to break my team-first rule and talk about myself.
I was born on the island of Guam, and there is a little-known true story of a Japanese soldier whom I shared an island with for the first two years of my life, albeit a few miles apart and with nobody ever realizing he was there. We considered creating a documentary and got as far as finishing a trailer.
(video footage shot by our long-time contractor Pat Horton)
And finally, there’s the time I walked around for around ten years telling everyone who would listen about an idea I had for a movie. I had a notepad full of plot points and a list of songs for the soundtrack along with what would cue them in the movie, and eventually a CVWmedia production intern wrote a treatment. However, I’m not a movie producer, and CVWmedia is not in the movie business, so that’s where the idea stayed…until someone else who is a movie producer had the same idea and made it.
I got chills watching it in the theater for the first time, as if my grand idea was somehow validated by someone else’s expertise and hard work. Turns out just knowing I was right was good enough for me. I say they got the name wrong but again, I’m no movie producer and nobody asked me. Sean Durkin, you’re my hero. Zac Efron, well done.
Sometimes we do the things we dream up, sometimes we don’t. Digital signage did happen for us and turned out to be a core piece of our business. Test projects for cartoon software ended up giving us more options and techniques for client projects. Things like video game website campaigns and movies and beer commercials never materialized, but sometimes the real point is to generate ideas and try new things. In this case, they were things that could be revisited five, ten, or fifteen years in the future. Speaking of, if you missed our new sizzle reel, you should really check it out, and in the meantime I look forward to checking back in another ten or twenty years; maybe our brand characters will make that list!