Sweetwater creates over 20 brand ads a month across just about every major consumer-facing publication in the music products industry. These publications include: Guitar World, Premier Guitar, Guitar Player, Modern Drummer, Bass Player, Sound on Sound, Mix, Acoustic Guitar, and many others.
When I took over the Print Marketing Department, the ads and catalog covers were chaotic without any real theme or branding. We were relying on stock photos from our vendors, which incorporated photos where the scaling and lighting were different, the styles were different, and it was a schizophrenic mess. I was told this was the best we could do because we didn't have the time to shoot real environments with real products.
This problem was easily solved: The ProGear Cover and all the brand ads were shot in-house at the same time. Needs of the vertical were achieved by shooting the same gear from different angles with different arrangements to satisfy the needs of the particular vertical.
