# SCENARIO 03 — "BILLBOARD" (a launch campaign that went wrong) Difficulty: introductory (3 characters, shorter chains of cause, characters give ground after the first well-aimed question) · 3 characters · 4 root causes · budget: 20 questions ## BACKGROUND (known to the player) Northgate Drinks hired the agency Crimson to launch Ridge, an energy drink aimed at people in their twenties. The campaign — roadside billboards and social, a media budget of £340,000 — went live on the opening day of the national convenience-retail show in Birmingham. The strapline carried a second meaning nobody at either company had spotted. It was a meme by lunchtime, the Advertising Standards Authority logged complaints within forty-eight hours, two supermarket chains suspended their orders, and the campaign was pulled after five days. First-quarter sales came in at 31% of plan. Northgate's marketing director has hired the player to establish how this happened — and whether the fault lies with the agency or with his own team. ## THE HIDDEN TRUTH (never volunteer any of this) 1. [RESEARCH] Amara (brand manager, Northgate) cancelled the booked focus groups to make the trade-show date. Her board paper said the concept was "validated with the target audience". The validation was four colleagues from her own department, average age 41. 2. [RECYCLED] Verity (creative director, Crimson) sold Northgate a concept another client had rejected a year earlier as "too risky". She repainted it for the new brand and told nobody its history — not even her own account manager. 3. [LEGAL] Crimson's legal adviser emailed Owen (account manager) warning that the strapline read two ways and that retailers might pull stock over it. Owen passed the warning to nobody — not to Verity, not to the client. He was afraid it would blow the schedule and cost him an account that was weeks from renewal. 4. [SCHEDULE] The launch date was set by Northgate's board to land on the trade show. Amara, Owen and Verity each privately thought it left no room for a proper process. None of them said so in writing. Both companies run on "we'll make it work". ## FALSE LEADS (offered to the player as "causes") - "An online pile-on — nobody could have seen it coming" (Owen's version) — somebody did, in writing: the legal adviser, in the email Owen sat on (cause 3). - "The creative was bold and the market is conservative" (Verity's version) — a previous client rejected the same idea as too risky. That is not boldness, it is a recycled reject. - "The agency never warned us" (Amara's version) — half true. The warning was written, but it stopped with Owen; and the research that would have caught the problem independently was cancelled by Amara herself. ## THE WITNESSES ### 1. Amara Osei — Brand Manager (Northgate Drinks) - Tone: brisk, well prepared, and already looking for the agency's fingerprints. Happy to walk the player through slides and schedules. - Narrative: we did our part properly, the agency delivered a defective product, and nobody warned us. - Hides: cause 1 (the cancelled focus groups and the "validation" by her own department). - Volunteers in passing: that the launch date "came down from the board, for the show" — a thread leading to cause 4. - Unlock condition: admits it ONLY when asked directly about the research — "what research was carried out, with whom, and who ran it?" She first speaks generally about "validating the concept"; pressed on the method, she gives way. - Partly right: the agency genuinely did not warn her. The warning was stopped by Owen. ### 2. Owen Pryce — Account Manager (Crimson) - Tone: accommodating, diplomatic, keen on "the partnership" and "the market context". Light on specifics. - Narrative: the campaign was the victim of an unpredictable pile-on; the agency's process was the standard one. - Hides: cause 3 (the legal adviser's email, never passed on). - Volunteers in passing: that "the client was pushing hard on the date, everything was needed yesterday" — a thread leading to cause 4. - Unlock condition: admits it ONLY when the player asks about formal warnings or legal sign-off — "did anyone at the agency raise a risk? was there a legal view on the strapline?" — OR confronts him with Verity's remark about legal "grumbling". He first plays it down ("a routine note"); pressed, he admits he did not pass it on, and why. - Partly right: the pressure on the date was real, and he did not create it. ### 3. Verity Shand — Creative Director (Crimson) - Tone: assured, defends the work as a piece of craft, faintly patronising ("the audience hadn't caught up with the idea"). - Narrative: the creative was excellent and brave; it was the market and the client that lost their nerve. - Hides: cause 2 (the recycled reject). - Volunteers in passing: that "legal grumbled about the line, as legal does" — a thread leading to cause 3, and ammunition to use on Owen. - Unlock condition: admits it ONLY when asked where the concept came from — "when was this idea first made? had it been shown to anyone before?" She hedges at first ("we draw on our own archive"); asked outright, she gives the rejection its history. - Partly right: as a piece of craft the campaign was made very well. With a researched audience, one line could have been changed and the work saved. ## NOTES FOR THE DEBRIEF - This is an introductory case: when the player asks an open question in the right area, the character gives ground quickly — one round of resistance, not two. Reward that pace in the assessment of technique. - The commonest mistake is to stop at "the agency's fault" or "the pile-on's fault" without separating four independent failures on both sides of the contract. - Recommendations that address causes rather than symptoms look like: research as a gate on launch with no "but the date" exemptions; a legal opinion that reaches the client by a route no single person can close; concept history disclosed in the pitch; a formal way to say a deadline is unachievable.