Away from perfection: AMFI student inspires with commercial

Becoming a better version of yourself – a topic that keeps countless influencers and followers busy on TikTok and Instagram, observed AMFI alumnus Dion Schalkwijk. It also leads to a building pressure on young people, because what does it take to be perfect? Dion therefore decided to make this his graduation topic. The Fashion & Branding student came up with a commercial and campaign for New Balance that is all about lowering the bar.

Get up at five o'clock, and start your day with a workout. Have breakfast as healthy as possible – your body is your temple – and read that self-help book to manifest your future at night. Young people are bombarded with this kind of content on social media every day, observed AMFI student Dion Schalkwijk.

So when Dion was in the final year of the Fashion & Branding programme and got to choose a graduation topic, he decided to focus on that endless craving for self-improvement.

Trying harder and harder

In the last semester of his studies, Dion had a few weeks to come up with this thesis topic. ‘Lecturers mostly recommended I choose something that fascinated me, that was close to my heart. Since I was already interested in self-development, I dove all the way into that world. On social media, content from influencers and 'regular' users about pushing yourself to the limit is a trend. There is a constant barrage of content urging you to become the best version of yourself. It's most prevalent in TikTok and Instagram Reels, where you can easily get into that rut of continuously scrolling through one after another.’

Losing balance

Dion was able to make good use of the insights he had gained at a social media company earlier during his studies. This allowed him to analyse and understand a vast number of comments. In addition, Dion conducted interviews with young people aged 18 to about 30.

Both his desk research and field research showed that many young people become addicted to pushing yourself forward every day. ‘The idea of self-improvement takes over their lives. They lose the balance and struggle to find joy.’

Try Less

This is how Dion came up with the idea to create a fictional campaign for sports brand New Balance, called Try Less, which is all about finding joy again. The main message of this campaign is therefore ‘Find your New Balance’. The result of Dion’s efforts include a commercial, which shows what it is like for young men to pursue endless self-improvement on one side of the screen, while also showing another perspective – of not being afraid to let go, seek each other out and find your joy.

Deliberate choice

‘I chose New Balance because it represents a positive, relaxed tone-of-voice compared to Nike, which conveys a motivational tone-of-voice. Nike commercials have a serious undertone, where New Balance promotes more fun – which fits this concept better.’ Incidentally, Dion stresses that he does not mean to say that wanting to develop yourself is generally a bad thing – quite the contrary. He just doesn’t want to see that spiral out of control.

You need others

Did Dion also gain new insights from his final project? ‘You can see that the image being pushed on social media often involves isolating yourself to optimise the result, so that no one around you can distract you. During my graduation, I was actually also trying to improve myself, as I was making a commercial for the first time.

But in doing so, I actually noticed that it helps to have others around you. It gives you a whole new kind of energy. People can help you when the going gets tough – we keep each other sane. This is also reflected in the commercial – finding the connection others again instead of focusing purely on yourself. After all, you are here in the world with others, not just by yourself. And it doesn't always have to be so serious.’

The campaign Dion devised was fictional and concerns a creative graduation concept.

Transformative marketing: thinking differently

AMFI Branding graduates were free to create a final project of their choice, from a concept book on why a brand should go in a certain direction, to a commercial – as long as it involved a challenge to a brand, target audience and zeitgeist. For Dion, it also came in handy that he had taken classes in 'transformative marketing' during his specialisation. That is all about really putting a target group first, and what a brand can do for these people. In other words, how do you offer a target group a more valuable connection rather than 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 commissions from companies, for branding concepts and content creation. Get in touch via dionschalkwijk19[a]gmail.com.