Photographer Woos Art Directors with Brilliant Instagram Campaign

When someone says you need to “think outside the box” when it comes to marketing your skills and getting work as a photographer, Toronto-based photographer Aric Guité‘s #CollabWithAric campaign is exactly what they’re talking about.

Guité knew full well that most of the promo postcards he (and everyone else) was sending to his favorite art directors were going straight in the recycling bin. He needed a way to get these directors’ attention, show they he could produce the kind of style they love, and present himself as enjoyable to work with at the same time.

Together with agency Havas Worldwide Canada, he struck on a brilliant idea.

Instead of continuing to send post cards or investing a ton of money into a really unique mailer (like this, or this … or this) he met his favorite art directors on their turf: Instagram.

He and Havas made a list of the top 30 art directors he wanted to work with, and then picked one photo from each of their Instagram accounts to “reply” to. For each photo, he created a second, matching shot—sometimes funny, sometimes interactive, sometimes… disturbing—and paired it with a fun caption. Then he tagged the art director he was trying to reach out to and, of course, added the #CollabWithAric hashtag.

Here are some examples he shared on Behance:

Given we’re writing about it on PetaPixel, you can already guess the promo worked to get him some publicity. But even before the press began picking up on the creative story, he was already receiving responses. According to the video, 65% (ummm… that’s 19.5 art directors out of 30…) responded to his outreach and “nearly” 20% (exactly 20% would be 6 out of 30, we we assume 5?) have hired him to work on upcoming projects.

Try to get those kinds of numbers through snail mail…

To learn more about the campaign or see some of the other creative images he shot for this unique outreach idea, head over to Behance of check out Guité’s Instagram.