The Designer Behind the CareerBuilder Ads: Nik Daum

Recently I’ve been stalking the CareerBuilder Super Bowl campaign, because I’m a customer of CareerBuilder, and more importantly because the study of Super Bowl ad strategy is very educational for those of us running much smaller marketing budgets.

I’ve also been honing my skills as social media participant. My first real foray into using Google Alerts, was to set one on “CareerBuilder Super Bowl Ads”. Today, it hit me with the kind of nugget that I never would have found without some real effort – the designer for the campaign, asking his peers what they thought of the ads.

Hey guys, I was wondering what your thoughts are on my ads that aired during the Super Bowl for an online job site called CareerBuilder.com

The comments on Youtube aren’t the most enlightening. You guys have more discerning tastes.

YouTube – Super Bowl Commercial – CareerBuilder.com – Queen of Hearts
Queen of Hearts

YouTube – Super Bowl Commercial – CareerBuilder.com – Firefly
Firefly

Two other spots from the campaign:
YouTube – CareerBuilder.com “Self-Help Yourself” Commercial
YouTube – CareerBuilder.com “Help You, Help You” Commercial

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Full res versions are on my site Art, Design, Direction and More! – NIKDAUM.COM

Thanks,
N

from designerstalk.com

You learn so much about the intent of a campaign and the thought process of the creative team by reading well…the thought process of the creative team…

“Queen of Hearts” is the story of a woman stuck in an unsatisfying job. Unable to act on her own, her heart takes matters into its own ventricles and busts forth with gusto to take care of business.

This literal execution of “follow your heart” remains practically unchanged from the initial script. Thai director Suthon Petchsuwan added whimsey though the set dressings, casting, and edit. Though hard to notice, the huge lobster helped peg the boss as a bad boss. A placeholder heart made of foam with wire feet was used during shooting for the actors to reference. It was replaced with a CGI model made by the SFX firm The Mill. Originally, we had wanted to use puppetry for the heart to make it more comical and less slick. But these days it is actually easier and cheaper to use CGI hearts.

For the branding at the end, the animators of the show Robot Chicken built and destroyed a miniature office park. The logo and the words START BUILDING were made out of painted acrylic and mounted on a metal plate to slide along. Gravity and some compositing did the rest. It took 6 takes, and six buildings to get right.

The rest of the campaign is featured within Nik Daum’s huge portfolio. He is a talented artist and designer who is going to take up residence in my blog roll for a while so I can follow more of his work.