Project Resurrection: When Big Ideas Are Ready But The Skills Aren’t

Abstract

“I know what I want to do, but I don’t know how to do it.” Having a great idea without the executional skills to match is a common scenario for budding advertising students. Rather than send their idea to the graveyard, there may be a better way to fix the issue: Project Resurrection. Refining previous projects collaboratively and longitudinally across an academic career can benefit students by adding coherence and cohesiveness to their education. The idea for Project Resurrection began as an ingenious way to revisit old work that needed a little extra attention—essentially a portfolio revision tactic. But in the following case, it became an unexpected catalyst for a crossdisciplinary collaboration resulting in a piece that won an award in the American Advertising Federation student competition. Here’s how it unfolded: A consumer research project was assigned to a class of strategic advertising students. The project challenged students to reimagine a product’s outdated package design. Students conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups to learn how consumers use the product. Throughout this process they gathered critical insights which lead to packaging improvements that would improve consumers’ lives. Though the desired intention was to work on a consumer packaged good, two students made a strong case to rethink the digital packaging of Netflix,