Blame the cause, not the case

This essay argues that advertising case studies do not represent the reality of ad campaigns, and offer limited lessons for new campaigns.

Blame the cause, not the case

Alexandra BurkeYoung & Rubicam

According to Nobel Prize winner Sir Peter Medawar, "Scientific papers in the form in which they are communicated to learned journals are notorious for misrepresenting the processes of thought that led to whatever discoveries they describe." I set out to find out if this statement applied to advertising case studies. I took the planner approach and probed the people around me: "What do you think about case studies?"

"Ugh. The dreaded case study," was the first response I received.

Part of her disdain for the case study comes from...

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