Sling Campaigns
Digital Marketing Materials
Seasonal Sports Assets
In June of 2021, I was hired on as a senior designer at OneTen, the in-house creative agency for Dish Network marketing. Within Dish, there are several lines of business, one of them being Sling TV, the industry’s first live TV streaming service. My role was to be a generalist designer for all things Sling, a brand that produces a huge amount of monthly ads.
As design lead, I was continually tasked with creation of seasonal sports ad assets. Being that I don’t follow sports and am an advocate of ad blockers, the irony of this pursuit wasn’t lost on me. Despite this fact, I jumped into the deep end creating concepts for perennial campaigns, leveraging both licensed IP and stock catalogs to achieve a premium feel.
Look & Feel file / In-market ads
After a concept is presented & selected, we’d create a campaign look & feel file to streamline handoff of the elements package to all designers involved in versioning out the concept for market platforms. Seasonal campaigns often comprise over 200 deliverables of all shapes and sizes that appear across devices (smart TV UIs), digital (social media/site banners), and editorial (digital articles). Relevant notes are included and smart objects are heavily utilized to optimize the shared production line, since creation of all deliverables will typically occur over the span of a few days to a week.
Workflow Optimization
In the routine process of creating and versioning hundreds of ads a month, it became apparent that we needed a more efficient production method. This led me to create a series of ‘Master Templates’ that would encapsulate all the different ad types we typically deploy in market placements.
Templates were divided between different ad types (e.g., Device vs digital), with individual artboards arranged on a single canvas so designers can view an entire ad set in one place. Each artboard contained a segregated container since Sling branding must be separated from programmer IP. Smart objects were also leveraged, which allowed for easy setting + swapping of key art and copy elements, further streamlining the versioning & export pipeline.
Master Device Ad Template (blank)
Color tags and clear naming conventions are used to distinguish between devices
Folder structure is kept clear to avoid clutter when layers are expanded.
Template (w/ key art)
Distribution on the DAM
Once assets have been arranged & compiled in the template, they are individually exported for hand-off to the client on our DAM (Digital Asset Manager), Brandfolder in this case. This is especially important when dealing with such a high-output marketing operation as Sling; which can sometimes see over 1000 unique deliverables being created for hand-off every month.
College Basketball
2022-23
One of the more annually impactful campaigns I had the opportunity to work on was March Madness. For 2022, we were given an incredibly tight timeline of 1 month to concept, shoot, and air a national TV spot. During a brainstorming sprint over the course of the first week, our small but mighty team of 6 ideated a multitude of options for consideration. Concepts ranged from tugging at heartstrings with underdog stories to zealous fandom, and even (my personal fave) mockumentaries.
The Final Cut
From this mad dash, one of the more ambitious concepts was chosen. Once the idea was greenlit, we composed a production deck over the course of the next week and shot the spot over 2 days in a Burbank studio. I had the pleasure of creating the title logo and concepting set design. Along with static creative, this campaign led to a record-breaking month for Sling with the highest-grossing new subscribership in the brand’s history.
Digital Ads
Besides the TV spot, a variety of device and banner ads were created to capitalize on the action and fandom with various team and conference IP
March Madness 2023
For 2023, the focus shifted strategies and we were tasked with creating a motion-based spot that would heavily utilize 3D graphics. I designed storyboards and worked directly with our CD, Heather Bettis, and the motion team to direct the tone and aesthetic of the end product, as seen below.
Product Education Series
Though considerably less action-packed than sports, the Product Edutainer series serves an important purpose in creating engagement while depicting new features and how to use them; often a fine balance between flash and function.
For this series, we were tasked with illustrating 3 new product features in relatively short clips that would be circulated internally and externally to be completed on a tight timeline of 3 weeks. All clips were to be delivered at the same time, and so we approached development simultaneously.
Working with our in-house Art Director of motion, copy director, and a freelance 3D motion designer, my role was to develop the aesthetic and storyboard all concepts. Since we only had a 1-week window of availability with the freelancer, we leaned into a minimal 3D glassmorphic approach for the sake of speed and versatility. This style lends itself well to the existing branding equity, isometric perspectives, and has a futuristic appeal without being graphically intensive to render.
RESULT
The March Madness 2022 campaign resulted in the largest single-day subscriber sales in the brand’s history, with the March Madness 2023 campaign not far behind.
The introduction of the workflow templates has standardized production and allowed for thousands of assets to be created in a fraction of the time, generating massive time & budget savings. As a strong advocate of constantly evolving process efficiencies, I am hopeful that this workflow can be further streamlined with the likes of Figma, automation, and cloud-based solutions.
Ry has a talent for creating intelligent systems, crafting memorable experiences, and telling engaging stories that leave a lasting impact. His problem-solving abilities and innate curiosity drive him to explore new possibilities and seek out innovative approaches. Ry's enthusiasm for discovery and his eagerness to embrace the unknown make him a true asset to any team.
