Nine Agency Pros Share Their Most Challenging Campaign (And How They Handled It)

This article featuring our Executive Creative Director, Kenny Eicher, originally appeared on Forbes.

Life at an agency can be exhilarating. Every client campaign presents a new opportunity to be creative. Of course, the flip side is that you're often starting from the ground up. You may have worked on similar campaigns in the past, but each one is unique and may present some challenges you've never encountered before.

We asked nine members of the Forbes Agency Council to share the most unique campaign they've ever worked on and how they faced the obstacles it brought. From building a fake brand to producing a pyrotechnic auto show spectacular, here's what they learned from these projects.

1. Highlighting And Balancing Two Brands In One Campaign 

I'm finalizing a long-form branded content video for a large retail chain in NYC. Our client brought in a partner to help subsidize the cost of the project. The challenge became to weave not one but both brands into the piece without it feeling like an ad for either. Our client trusted us to tell the story we were hired to tell. Both brands look like rock stars and our creative remained intact. - Kenny Eicher, The CSI Group

2. Creating Local SEO Campaigns For Medical Practices 

Medical practices are often multiple businesses at the same location — a doctor's practice and a retail store. Creating unique local listings for the practicing physicians, in addition to the retail store listing, makes it hard to establish a brand presence. These campaigns we ran required extreme organization, attention to detail and a strategy more advanced than citation building. - Aaron Henry, FOUNDRY512

3. Creating 24/7 Media Materials For A 600-Mile Peace Walk 

One of the most unique campaigns we have worked on was for a client walking 600 miles from London to Geneva to embody a message of peace for the Syrian people. The challenge: Our team came in after she had already started her walk. We overcame this challenge by incorporating our Online Press Kit 24/7 technology, which allowed our whole team and the media to access our constantly updated content. - Drew Gerber, Wasabi Publicity, Inc. 

4. Impressing A Jaded Media Audience 

When we launched a digital camera for a global brand, we needed to impress the media who had "been there, done that." To demonstrate the camera's high performance under different conditions, we took them on a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon, on a race course with a professional driver and finally to a suite in the Palms with a full-size basketball court and trick basketball team. - Jenni Smith, EGR International

5. Building A New (Fake) Brand From Scratch 

Jamba Juice found out that Ellen DeGeneres and Adele were going to prank one of its locations with a made-up brand called Swishy Chug. We only had eight hours to create a whole new brand, including a campaign with assets including a webpage, coupons, etc. Planning is great, but sometimes you just have to act. In this case, we were lucky to have a client ready to take a risk and move quickly. - Dan Golden, Be Found Online

6. Standing Out During A Highly Competitive Tourism Season 

We helped Visit Syracuse, a destination known for the snowiest winters on record, build demand during this notorious season. The “Official Home of Winter” humorously positioned them as a fun destination, reaching internal stakeholders and external visitors with a simple message: Syracuse owns winter, has fun with it and is proud of it. - Nicole Mahoney, Break the Ice Media

7. Getting Loyal Consumers To Share Random Content 

One big campaign I worked on was trying to increase market share for Diet Mountain Dew by creating really random videos to increase brand awareness. It was a huge challenge and was massively successful by engaging our most loyal consumers, who shared the content all over the internet. The key to the success was to focus on the loyal consumers and have them share. - Korey McMahon, McMahon Marketing

8. Producing A Complex, Tech-Heavy Launch Event In 18 Hours 

In 2017, my team launched the fastest street-legal drag production car for Dodge during the NY Auto Show. With a short load-in window of 18 hours, an impossible task for most, we strategically pre-programmed lighting and A/V, allowing us to complete this extremely complex production. Pier 94 on the Hudson River transformed into a stage with a drag strip, pyrotechnics, hero cars and celeb guests. - Scott Kellner, GPJ Experience Marketing

9. Selling Our Own Brand 

One of the toughest campaigns to manage is a company rebrand because, for it to work, everyone in the organization has to feel ownership. For our recent repositioning, we had several internal teams develop and pitch ideas, with an iterative review process that helped us land on the strongest option. In the end, the teams all felt vested because they contributed to the process. - Chris Cavanaugh, Freeman