Becoming a better version of yourself: it keeps countless influencers and followers busy on TikTok and Instagram, saw AMFI alumnus Dion Schalkwijk. As a result, young people suffer from this, because when are you perfect? Dion therefore decided to make this his graduation subject. The Fashion & Branding student came up with a commercial and campaign for New Balance, which is all about lowering the bar. Get up at five o’clock and start your day with a workout. Have as healthy a breakfast as possible – your body is your temple – and read that self-help book in the evening to manifest your future. This type of content is poured out on young people in large quantities every day on social media, AMFI student Dion Schalkwijk saw.
So when Dion was allowed to choose a graduation topic in the final year of his Fashion & Branding studies, he decided to focus on that endless desire for self-improvement.
Do your best every time
In the last six months of his studies, Dion had a few weeks to come up with this graduation topic. “Teachers advised to choose something that fascinated you, that was close to your heart. Because I was already interested in self-development, I completely immersed myself in that world. On social media, content from influencers and ‘regular’ users about pushing yourself to the limit is a trend. It is, as it were, always spit in your face to become the best version of yourself. It mainly concerns TikTok and Instagram Reels, where you can easily get into the habit of constantly swiping.”
Balance gone
Dion was able to make good use of the insights he had gained during his studies at a social media company. This allowed him to analyze and understand large amounts of comments. In addition, Dion conducted interviews with young people aged 18 to approximately 30 years.
Both his desk research and field research showed that many young people become addicted to pushing themselves further every day. “They could think of nothing else but self-improvement. The balance was gone and the fun was gone.”
Try Less
This is how Dion came up with the idea of creating a fictional campaign for sports brand New Balance, called Try Less, which is all about finding fun again. The main message of this campaign is “Find your New Balance”. The result is, among other things, a commercial that on one side of the image shows what it is like for young men to strive for endless self-improvement, and also shows an alternative – daring to let go of this, seeking out each other and daring to have fun.
Conscious choice
“I chose New Balance because it represents a positive, relaxed tone of voice when you compare it with Nike, which conveys a motivational tone of voice. Nike commercials have a serious undertone, while New Balance promotes more fun; that fits this concept better.”
Dion emphasizes that he does not mean that wanting to develop yourself is generally a bad thing – on the contrary. What matters to him is the excess.
You need others.
Has Dion also gained new insights from his graduation work? “You see that pushing such an image on social media is often accompanied by isolating yourself to get to the extreme, so that no one around you can distract you. During my graduation I was actually also working on improving myself, because I made a commercial for the first time.
But I noticed that it helps to have others around you; it gives a different energy. People can help you when things go wrong; we keep each other healthy. You can also see this in the commercial – rediscovering the connection with others instead of focusing purely on yourself. After all, you are here in the world with others, not just for yourself. And it doesn’t always have to be so serious.” The campaign that Dion devised was fictional and concerns a creative graduation concept.
Transformative marketing: thinking the other way around
The AMFI Branding graduates were free to create a graduation work of their choice – from a concept book about why a brand should take a certain direction, to a commercial – as long as it was a challenge for a brand, target group and zeitgeist. It was also useful for Dion that he had taken lessons in ‘transformative marketing’ during his specialization. It’s all about really focusing on a target group and what a brand can do for these people; in other words, to offer a target group a more valuable connection instead of seeing them primarily as a sales market.
Contact
Dion Schalkwijk graduated from AMFI this summer and has received many positive reactions to his fictional commercial. He is currently open to creative assignments from companies, for branding concepts and content creation. Contact us at dionschalkwijk19@gmail.com.
Source: fashionunited.nl
