CEOs Unplugged
Print Design | Experimental pitch deck
Client: Unplugged
Status: Completed
Industry: Corporate communications
Region: South Africa
Brief
In order to attract new customers for their workshops, Unplugged communications wanted to send out a pitch deck to the CEOs of all the biggest firms in South Africa that had not yet been onboarded. They knew however that a simple email was not going to cut it.
Unplugged Creative Director, Rick Melvin, had the idea to send each CEO a record, from their favourite artist, but instead of the Artist on the front cover, it would be the CEO.
The concept behind it borrows from the MTV Live Unplugged sessions in which big-name musicians play smaller more intimate shows through which they can connect more deeply with their audiences. This concept was transposed to the workplace by putting the CEOs in the position of musicians.
The concept of the pitch seeks to evoke a sense of nostalgia for the wonder of feeling close to a musician through an intimate performance as well as stroking the ego of CEO’s likening them to their heroes. It also seeks to leave a lasting impression with a physical artefact that is highly relatable to Unplugged’s targeted demographic.
Working under Unplugged Creative Director, Rick Melville, I designed record sleeve and inserts for on-boarding media for the CEOs of some of South Africa’s top companies.
Rick came up with the over-arching concept and wrote the copy, but entrusted the visual treatment to me.
The majority of the work was sourcing imagery of the musicians the CEOs and then faceswapping them in a manner than was believeable enough that would cause the recipient to do a double take on first looking at the album.
The inner sleeves further the comparison between CEOs and Rock Stars, and go into detail regarding the need to connect on a more intimate level with staff members that they can feel truly part of the company as a team and not just a cog in the corporate system.
The typographic treatment was bold and eye catching. A busy CEO is not likely to spend more than 30 seconds to a minute glancing at something so we needed to ensure that key features and selling points could be recognised at a glance.
To evoke the sense of Nostalgia the entire exercise was done in high contrast black and white like vintage concert photos. The only colour is Unplugged’s logo in red on the last page of the insert to make it stand out and cement it into the CEOs mind.
