Let’s Try This Again…
Welcome to my second attempt at blogging! I can’t promise revolutionary content, but I can promise to make you wonder if everything is what it seems — at least in the age of digital.
I’m Erika Vasquez and I was born in Cali, Colombia almost 30 years ago, and New York City has been my home for the last 17 years. I don’t think I am from here or there, but New York shaped my sarcastic personality. I mentioned this as a preamble to my future remarks and jokes, don’t take everything you see on the internet too seriously. Growing up in the digital age builds a different type of person, we don’t believe anything and everything at the same time (I’m looking at you WebMD, and BuzzFeed.)
My passion for marketing and advertising started when my cousin was going to undergrad in Colombia, and all her classes consisted of creating campaigns to market products and services differently, think guerilla marketing. I was only 9 years old, and I already was obsessed with commercials and jingles. I consider jingles the most interesting thing ever, even more so now with TikTok, everything becomes a jingle or a song. If I was to say “For me, I really like corn…” you already know what I am talking about. Seeing my cousin coming up with clever ideas over the years inspired me to study marketing.
I graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology with a degree in Advertising and Marketing Communications, and a minor in Italian. Why a minor in Italian? My background is Spanish and Italian, and I already spoke Spanish. Italian was next on the list of languages to learn, so I decided to move to Florence, Italy for a semester during my undergraduate degree and completely immerse myself in the culture and language. So now, I speak Spanish, English, and Italian. I have recently started learning Korean because of a Netflix show and K-pop (If the type of marketing I create is not driving people to learn something new or purchase a product because they feel a deep connection to it, I don’t see the point of producing it.)
For the last 5 years, I have worked in the hospitality and technology industries, where I have had the pleasure of working with a variety of verticals from finance, automotive, fashion, consumer goods, real estate, legal, and entertainment, to diplomatic, and celebrities. I have learned invaluable knowledge from all industries, but most importantly I have learned that we all like to think our ideas are just ours like we came up with them from thin air. Whether this could be true or not, I would like to challenge this thought because we get inspiration from everything.
Over the next 15–17 weeks I will be sharing content on different digital marketing campaigns, and I will try to find as much information as possible on where the inspiration came from, how was the idea developed, and similar campaigns. I get inspiration from everywhere and everything. As design is my favorite subject to follow, whether, in fashion, interior, or beauty, I like to know where it comes from, what it symbolizes, and how to expand it to make it unique. So, I encourage you to challenge my thinking and share your thoughts on my findings from different campaigns. I want to know if you have seen these campaigns before, what are your thoughts on the campaign, or if you have heard of a similar product.
