Pre-Write the Case Study

I’m taking a fiction-writing class, and last night my teacher gave us this tip: “If you’re writing a novel, one exercise to help determine what the novel wants to be is to write a review for it.”

Even before you’re done, jump ahead and write what you’d like to see in the press once your novel is published. How would they describe it? Not just that it’s awesome, but why and what it’s about. It’s basically a roadmap built on aspiration.

You can do the same thing when thinking about your ad campaign. Write a case study for it. Even before you have it figured out, see if you can write what you’d like the case study to be. What was the problem? Your insight? Your solution?

You’ll be able to tell pretty quickly if you’re idea’s simple and if you actually know what you’re trying to achieve. You’ll also be able to see if, once all is said and done, you’ll actually have a compelling story to tell.

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Bad Presentation Can Ruin a Great Idea

A bad presentation can ruin a great idea. This is true if you’re presenting work to a client or just in the way you present your work on your website.

Don’t spend weeks crafting every detail of a campaign and then slap it on your website with a poorly-written description you crapped out in 30 seconds. Your job is to present ideas. To communicate clearly. To tell compelling stories. How you present your ideas will be judged as much as the ideas themselves.

So make sure you think about how you present your idea. Is there a story behind it? Does there need to be? Should you create a video about it or do a couple simple sentences suffice?

In the words of the great ad man, Albert Einstein: “Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

A CASE STUDY VIDEO SHOULD BE A LAST RESORT

If your campaign is clear without a case study video, please, for the love of all that is good, do not make a case study video. If you absolutely, positively, without a doubt cannot sum up your campaign in a short paragraph or a few bullet points, then and only then should you make me/us sit through a 2-minute case study video. 

P.S. It goes without saying that you will spread your campaign message through twitter and allow people to share it via social media channels. That is not a concept in itself and does not warrant a case study video. 

P.P.S. We have made this post into a handy jpg. Please feel free to blow it up, print it out and post it at your school/agency/barn. Godspeed.