On Wednesday afternoon Oct 12th, the employees of KBC in the Havenlaan, Brussels were shocked.

No, there was no news about a new wave in the financial crisis hitting KBC after it hit Dexia a couple of days before.
No, there wasn’t even a small earthquake or heavy rainfall.
No ships sank in the canal, no cars crashed in front of the building.

Instead, the auditorium on the base floor was flooded. With people. NOT WEARING SUITS!
About 100 advertising lovers walked in on All Stars and other sneakers, wearing ripped jeans and plaid shirts, Friday-casual-dresses and stockings in every colour you can think of.

All jokes aside, the Effie seminar, where no less than 8 Effie award winners presented their case was a mix of different products (FMCG, services, telco, non-profit) and profiles (local, international, leaders and challengers).

Bert Denis (TBWA Brussels) and Joelle Liberman (Egerie) introduced us to the wonderous world of the Effie case, focusing on why and how an Effie case should be written. Key words were consistency, coherence, one simple idea explained in a fixed structure of market situation, goals, media- and communication strategies and results. Or in fairytale-language: think up a hero, an enemy, a strategy to defet the enemy and close it off with a happy ending. Easy, no?

Up next: the 8 (EIGHT) cases that won a bronze (Luminus, St Maria Ziekenhuis Halle, JOEfm), silver (Lotus Speculoos and Belgacom TV) or gold (Melk, Win for Life, William Lawson’s). Market situation, goals, strategy, results. Yep. I still remember this from the intro. No need to repeat it 8 times… Sure, the Effie case does have this structure. Sure, it’s the most logical way to present the case. But please, aren’t you all part of CREATIVE agencies?

Either way, whether it was Duval Guillaume Modem presenting, or Openhere or Famous (to name just a few), there were some key phrases that kept coming back: keep your case consumer focused (because whether you’re in telco, energy supplying or in the business of selling what comes out a cow’s udder: you’re talking to your customer), keep the idea very clean and simple, and most importantly, create one coherent story in everything you do and every medium you use.

Lastly, we are warned: writing an Effie case takes a lot of time and energy, and therefore should have a dedicated team working on it. But of course, the reward is giant: winning an Effie award raises your resumé to a different level in the world of advertising.   

Will you be seeing me at the Effies in 2012? I’d choose the ceremony over the seminar, unless you’ve got a case waiting to be written.

-- Loes Janssen