To tell you the truth, I worked in a marketing role for about 8 months. I promoted an electronics development kit similar to Arduino to college students. I wrote blogs and took photos of the kit to share with others. I came up with ways to make it “cool”, like shiny pamphlets and contests and project ideas.
The trouble is, “cool” isn’t slapped on. A product or service needs its workers believing in what they are doing. (My electronics kit was running against the grain of everything the company stood for, costing a lot of money, taking a lot of time, focusing on doing it right, and so on.) A great product or service sells itself by its own value. As Walt Whitman would say, when you believe in what you are doing for its own worth, “…your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body…”
This photo is advertising I did for “The Muffin Shack”. This was a high school project, where I came up with a business idea and tried to sell it. I learned bad habits of advertising before and during this project, like “Ooh, that font is pretty. I’ll use that,” and, “We need a photo of smiling people. That will sell.”
My friend in the same class came up with “Toast ‘n’ Jam”, a café selling baked goods and jam, also hosting live music. The double entendre of “jam”, with both meanings being good things, sold itself.
Arthur Hovinc's Port Manteau 