I’ve been trying to figure out how to document a campaign in a way that makes sense to both my Russian team and our US partners, and every time I try, something gets lost in translation.
It’s not just the language—it’s the context. What counts as a “win” in Russia vs. the US can be completely different. The metrics people care about, the way they interpret ROI, even what they think counts as a “success story” versus just “normal performance.”
I tried building a case study following the classic structure—challenge, actions, results—but when I sent it to both teams, I got completely different feedback. The Russian team wanted more detail on the relationships we built with creators and partners. The US team wanted clear before/after metrics and efficiency ratios. Both were right, but they were asking for different things.
Here’s what I realized: I wasn’t writing one case study. I was trying to write two case studies in two languages, and that’s not the same thing.
So I started experimenting with structure:
- Challenge section: I describe the problem in business terms first (what we were trying to achieve), then layer in market-specific context (market dynamics that made it harder).
- Actions section: I break it down by team—what the partnership/strategy team did, what the creative team did, what the measurement team did. This helps both sides see themselves in the story.
- Results section: I lead with the headline metric that matters to both (“increased ROAS by X%”), then add depth: what that meant operationally in Russia vs. the US, what we learned about market differences.
But I’m still not sure if this is the right frame. My sense is that I’m still over-optimizing for one audience or the other in different sections.
How do you guys structure case studies when you’re writing for two completely different cultural and business contexts? Do you write one story twice, or do you try to find a framework that genuinely works for both?