Case studyPublic Media

KQED Live Cutting for Public Media

A launch campaign for KQED, cut to comedy's harder brief: stay funny, land the CTA.

Bad Buddha CreativeEnlightening Video

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Deliverables

  • Multi-Cam ~ 6 Unique Spots
KQED, The West's Best
The trust
Public media's biggest stage in the Bay Area
Comedy with a Job to Do
The ask
Comedy that lands a call to action and keeps every sign‑off happy
One Joke, One Ask
The payoff
A wardrobe‑mirror gag, cut with comedic precision, that won over stakeholders
Category
Advertising
Industry
BroadcastPublic Media
Role / craft
Senior EditorColor CorrectionMultiformat Delivery

The challenge

Public broadcasting runs on sign‑offs. This was a launch campaign for a new show, and every high‑end stakeholder had an important voice, and each of their requests had to be met.

A guest in a patterned dress raises a hand to her reflection in the wardrobe mirror
Six spots, one wardrobe.

The craft

I storyboarded each joke so every moment built on the one before it and still arrived at the same ask: watch our show.

A guest in a burgundy dress laughs mid-gesture at her reflection in the wardrobe mirror
The mirror gag gave the edit its rhythm.

Comedy is harder than drama, and in advertising it’s very tricky to deliver the call‑to‑action messaging inside the funny stuff. They had no clue how I was going to accomplish it. They just said go to it, see what you can do.

Jacob NasimIn the cutting room

The first pass got belly laughs in the room. They said they could walk away right there. Everything after that was widening the aperture: the work was keeping the fun intact while each of the stakeholders got what they needed.

The deliverables

A/B testable spots at 30, 15 and 6 seconds: repacks of the same material cut every way the launch could want it, all to broadcast spec.

A guest in a striped shirt grins at his reflection in the wardrobe mirror
He knew it before the camera did.
A guest in an embroidered western shirt considers his reflection in the wardrobe mirror
The mirror had nothing to add.

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