The 'Media Battle' is a concept for a competitive one-week pressure-cooker contest, in which students develop a creative product for companies or other organisations. It brings together education, research and professional practice, with benefits for all parties involved. We guide participating organisations to develop a detailed problem description ensuring that descriptions are sufficiently clear and focused for students to work on during a week. Students spend the
week developing their concept such that it can be pitched to their client organisation. Students are trained in pitching and are coached in developing creative concepts. Several groups have the same client. On the last day, clients select their favourite concept, while a jury selects a winner among the concepts of different clients. Most concepts are further developed in 'regular courses', while some concepts, usually the winning ones, are subject of further development in the curriculum. In this article we will describe our experiences with media battles and discuss critical success
and failure factors.