This weekend I launched a new website: M&M’s Made it Better. This site was conceived over a year ago based on a simple idea: M&M’s make me happy, and their effect is likely the same for others. So, I decided to create a simple advertising campaign that allowed me to: Practice photography with a light tent, design a creative yet simple concept, and spend as little money as possible. In total, I spent ~$40 for extra supplies.

Granted, I already owned the light tent and lights (previous investment of $90), a banana, cycling gloves and RoadID, and a curved highball glass. However, the photos were designed to maximize what I had and minimize what I needed. Three of the five photos were completely redone after the first run to make improvements. About 800 digital photos were taken with my Canon S95. The extra supples I purchases were the glassware for the plant and flower photos, the M&M’s themselves, a clear water bottle, pink paper, and a small bag of Fun Size M&M’s.

While I did 99% of the work myself, I did have assistance in the post-processing department to cleanup the backgrounds of the photos. That required skills and software beyond my own, so I enlisted David Espinosa and Michelle Burdis to do some Photoshop work. Their combined 4 hours of work took my photos from very good to great, and for that I’m very grateful. Also a special thanks to Ellen K. who gave some initial feedback on improvements to the first round of photos. All-in-all, the project took approximately 1 week to complete, and should at least put a few smiles on the faces of candy lovers everywhere. It was a labor of love, not an investment in income. However, it does work as an example of the type of work I can do for business as a consultant.

Finally, here are the final thoughts on what you should consider for your own unique advertising campaign:

• How will your audience view it (print, online, etc)?
• What emotion will it evoke?
• Can you test the concept for a reduced cost before investing in the campaign further?
• Do you have a team that understands the goals and can improve the final product?

How did I spread the word?
Digg.com, Reddit.com (unique title), Facebook, Twitter (@ M&M branded accounts), Google+, and contacted bloggers who share interesting tidbits from around the web. Not a lot was done for this campaign currently, as I said, it was not a matter of monetization. Of course, Analytics, URL submission to search engines, and Google Webmaster Tools were used; standard really.