My Washington Media Scholar Case Competition experience was extremely impactful, rewarding, and educational. Walking into the competition, I knew absolutely nothing about media buying. I didn’t even really understand excel. Landing more on the creative side of communication, I wanted to challenge myself to use raw data to build out a solid, data-driven media plan. With the help of google, a few used textbooks, and my own determination. Not only did I achieve what I set out to do, but I won the competition in the process. Meeting with industry professionals and different organizations was an incredible opportunity and I am so proud to call myself a media scholar!
It began with a crazy big idea. One that I honestly wasn’t sure if I could do. The first step was to understand what an index was, GRPs, and many, many other terms. After that, I created a cheat sheet and began scanning through hundreds of lines of data. Looking for that needle-in-a-haystack target audience. Once I discovered who would fit the bill for this case, I began to build an inbound marketing strategy with a $350,000 budget. Using excel, I began to learn formulas and even restructured the form they sent us to fill out. Then to my surprise, I made it to the semifinal. Then the final, and I found myself on a flight to Washington D.C., meeting with Fox News, NBC Universal, Purple Strategies, and Google (to name a few). When it came time to present my final plan, I was excited to share the culmination of many sleepless nights, and hard work. Then, to my surprise- I received FIRST PLACE!!!
Click on this cover image to read the full report >
