Syracuse University’s Vivian Yang maneuvered her way to the forefront with her New Talent 2023 campaign titled “Got Goosebumps?“. Her inventive approach to addressing the common fear of parallel parking has taken the wheel in showcasing her creative prowess.
By: Vivian Yang
We all know the feeling when it’s time to parallel park. Your eyes are darting side to side, and your palms are sweating- hoping to nail the spot on the first try. It’s safe to say that parallel parking is not everyone’s favorite cup of tea.
Luckily, with the strides of technology, Mercedes has made every driver’s life easier. They introduced PARKASSIST, where the car will parallel park the vehicle for you. During brainstorming sessions to advertise the PARKASSIST feature, I kept a bit of advice I learned from my creative advertising professor at the Newhouse School of Public Communications, Mel White, in mind: explore the opposition.
In the early stages of bringing this campaign to life, I leaned into the fears surrounding parallel parking. Observing my experience and watching the people around me, I realized that the fear stems from hitting the cars in the front and the back. To make the fear come to life, I drew a lot of inspiration from the films I’ve seen in the past. I explored directions from horror, adventure, and fantasy genres. Ultimately, I landed on the idea of turning the cars into sleeping wild animals.
My favorite part of crafting this campaign must be the time I spent browsing through the animal stock photos. It was tough finding “intimidating” sleeping animals. However, playing with the shadow, saturation, and size in Photoshop, I am very proud of the finished campaign.
This campaign has instilled in me the love to create. And, of course, it was great sharing some of my favorite animals with everyone.
Vivian Yang (she/her) is a creative advertising student at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications. She has interned at FCB Health as a copywriting intern and at Walrus NYC as an art director intern. At FCB Health, she discovered the power of creativity and worked on her first real-world clients. At Walrus NYC, she experienced the meaning of the saying: there’s never a dull moment in advertising. She hopes to continue having fun creating campaigns with amazing people.
