I Made An Aviation Gin Spec Commercial & Here’s What Happened
Creating spec commercials is a great way to showcase your creative filmmaking abilities and build your portfolio. What’s great about spec projects is that they allow you to create your vision without having to accommodate client requests. You’re free to do whatever you want.
Spec projects are important for filmmakers to create because not only do they give you creative freedom but you can leverage that work to get hired for similar projects. That is why I wanted to create a spec commercial for the brand Aviation Gin. If you’re a filmmaker you need to always be creating because you never know what could come from it. Here is the story of how I made this Aviation Gin Spec Commercial, got it seen by Aviation Gin, and listed it as the best product video in a Design Rush article.
The Aviation Gin brand is also an example of a brand that I would like to work with someday. I like the brand. I like how Ryan Reynolds started it and I like how he is not afraid to bring his personality into it. He’s funny but also comes off as a man of taste and luxury without appearing as “stuck-up” or anything like that. At least from what I’ve seen online, I don’t know how he is in person but I’m sure he’s a cool guy.
Anyways, I also find it really interesting how the company approaches its video marketing. They get Ryan Reynolds on camera showing the audience how to make cocktails using Aviation Gin. It's brilliant. They educate the audience on how to use the product and they have Ryan Reynolds making jokes the whole time. This keeps people engaged and provides them with value so they have a reason to keep watching their content. Videos like these are great for raising brand affinity and awareness. It’s no wonder why Aviation Gin is so successful.
Those are a few reasons why I love the Aviation Gin brand so much and that is exactly why I wanted to create this commercial, hopefully, to get their attention. I created the product commercial so that it has this playful, fun, and clever feel to it, which I believe to be on-brand with Aviation Gin. I used music, graphics, and story to help me achieve that. I have a fascination with planes and knew that I wanted to create a spec project with planes in it, planes also felt appropriate considering the name of the product. However, since the video was a spec project, meaning I had to fund the whole thing myself, I could not afford a real plane. So I made one myself with computer graphics. Creative problems call for creative solutions.
In the end, this video did end up getting the attention of the Aviation Gin brand after I posted the video on Instagram. I also now have a portfolio piece that I am proud of and that has brought me more opportunities than I could have imagined. Most recently Design Rush now recognizes the video as among the best product videos in the video design category in one of their recent articles. The video itself didn’t make any money directly but everything else that came with it made it well worth the effort.
Check out this behind-the-scenes video I made showing exactly how I planned, shot, and edited this project.
