Summary
Local Austin agency, McGarrah Jessee, had challenged a few independent teams of graduate Advertising students from The University of Texas at Austin to put together a pitch for a new branding campaign for their client, Costa Del Mar.
Methodologies
Expert interview, secondary research, focus group, survey
My role
Focus group moderator, survey designer, research analyst, lead pitch presenter, input to campaign definition and evaluative metrics
Process
Empathize: understand the brand and current market
Ideate: uncover insights that could lead to untapped opportunities for growth
Test: incite a discussion that spawns new ideas and confirms or rejects assumptions
Design: employ the insights discovered as the foundational grounding of a new, omnichannel campaign strategy
Evaluate: define the measures of success for each step of the proposed campaign
Outcomes
In the end, my team won the pitch out of 5 other great presentations. Even though I participated in this work during my Master's program, it still stands as one of my favorite projects. It is a great example of the importance of insights and strategy as a key component of the creative process. Creative that leaves its mark is often born from universal truths about behavior and culture. It is those truths that not only gives the campaign legs to stand on...it gives it legs to run. To quote Bill Bernbach "Nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature...what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action...if you know these things about a man you can touch him at the core of his being."