Case Study 01: From Generic to Remarkable — Alex's Blog Post Transformation

Chapter: 7 — Prompting Fundamentals: Structure, Clarity, and Specificity Persona: Alex (Content Marketing Manager, DTC Lifestyle Brand) Scenario: Transforming a vague blog post request into a high-performing, brand-specific output through three iterations of prompt improvement

Background

Alex has been using AI tools for about four months. She is confident using them for drafts, summaries, and ideation — but she consistently finds herself spending 30–45 minutes editing AI-generated content to "make it sound like us." The content is never wrong, exactly. It is just generic. It could be from any brand, for any audience.

The catalyst for this case study is a specific request from her marketing director: "Can you get AI to write the launch blog post for the Terroir Candle Collection? We're announcing next Thursday and I need a first draft by tomorrow."

Alex has the product details, the brand guidelines, and the editorial calendar. What she needs is a prompting strategy that will produce something usable rather than something she has to completely rewrite.

This case study documents her three attempts — the initial prompt, a revised intermediate prompt, and the final high-performance prompt — along with the AI outputs and analysis of exactly what changed.

Attempt 1: The First-Instinct Prompt

The Prompt

Write a blog post about our new candle line.

The Output (reproduced in full)

Introducing Our New Candle Collection: Light Up Your Space

Candles have always been more than just a source of light. They create ambiance, set the mood, and bring a sense of warmth and comfort to any space. We are thrilled to announce our newest candle line, crafted with care and designed to elevate your home environment.

Our new collection features a variety of carefully selected scents, from soothing lavender to invigorating citrus. Each candle is made with high-quality ingredients and designed to burn evenly, providing hours of beautiful fragrance for your home.

Whether you are looking to create a relaxing atmosphere after a long day or set the perfect tone for a dinner party, our new candles are the perfect choice. Available in a range of sizes and styles, there is something for everyone in this exciting new collection.

Shop the collection today and discover the difference that quality candles can make in your space. We know you will love them as much as we do!

Analysis

This output is what could reasonably be called "competently useless." It is grammatically correct, appropriately structured, and completely without value for Alex's purposes. Consider what it does not contain:

  • No mention of the collection name (Terroir)
  • No mention of the French wine region concept
  • No specific candle names or scents
  • No indication of the brand's voice or aesthetic
  • No specific audience (could be anyone who owns a room)
  • Generic clichés ("elevate your space," "perfect for any occasion")
  • A closing sentence that would embarrass any serious content marketer

The prompt gave the AI: a type (blog post), a broad topic (candle line). Nothing else. The AI responded with the most statistically typical version of "blog post about candle line" from its training data. It did exactly what was asked. The problem was that what was asked was not enough.

Time Alex spent editing this output: 52 minutes (to the point where she essentially rewrote it)

Attempt 2: The Intermediate Prompt

Alex recognized that the first output was generic, but she attributed the problem to "the AI not knowing our products." She spent ten minutes writing a longer prompt.

The Prompt

Write a 600-word blog post for our lifestyle brand's website about our new candle
line called the Terroir Collection. The collection features five candles named after
French wine regions — Bordeaux, Burgundie, Alsace, Loire, and Champagne. Each one
is scented to evoke that region. Our brand is called Lumier Home and we make
premium home goods. Our audience is women who care about home aesthetics. Please
make it sound like our brand and don't use generic candle phrases.

The Output (condensed — first 200 words shown)

The Terroir Collection: Five French Regions, Five Unforgettable Scents

At Lumier Home, we have always believed that the best home goods tell a story. Our newest candle collection, the Terroir Collection, does exactly that — drawing inspiration from five iconic French wine regions to create five distinct sensory experiences that bring a corner of France into your home.

Bordeaux Named for the legendary wine capital of the world, the Bordeaux candle combines deep, woody notes of cedar and black currant with a subtle undercurrent of leather. Close your eyes and you might find yourself in a centuries-old chateau, surrounded by rolling vineyards at harvest time.

Burgundie The Burgundie candle captures the earthy elegance of one of France's most storied wine regions. Notes of damp earth, ripe plum, and a hint of oak create a scent that is as complex as the wines it honors...

Analysis

This is meaningfully better. Alex's second prompt added:

What improved: - The collection name and concept are present - Individual candle names appear - There is an attempt at storytelling ("tell a story") - The structure is better — there are headers for each candle - The output is specifically about Lumier Home, not a generic brand

What is still wrong:

The brand voice is still off. The output uses phrases like "might find yourself" and "as complex as the wines it honors" — which are technically fine but are not the Lumier Home voice. The instruction to "sound like our brand" is meaningless without telling the AI what the brand sounds like. The AI is guessing — and it is guessing "premium lifestyle brand," which produces a reasonable simulacrum but not the actual voice.

The audience specification ("women who care about home aesthetics") is still too broad. At what age? What other media do they consume? What motivates a purchase for them — is it the aesthetic, the experience, the story, the gifting potential?

The negative instruction "don't use generic candle phrases" is present but unbounded — the AI avoided some clichés but introduced others ("bring a corner of France into your home" is its own kind of cliché).

Time Alex spent editing this output: 28 minutes

Progress, but still substantial revision required.

Attempt 3: The High-Performance Prompt

Alex spent 12 minutes writing this prompt, drawing on her knowledge of the brand, audience, and what she was looking for.

The Prompt

Write a 600-word blog post for Lumier Home's website announcing the Terroir
Collection — five candles named after French wine regions (Bordeaux, Burgundie,
Alsace, Loire, Champagne), each scented to evoke the landscape and mood of that
region, not just the wine.

Brand voice context: Lumier Home's voice is sophisticated but approachable. The
best description: "a well-traveled friend who makes you feel cultured without making
you feel ignorant." We reference culture and craft without lecturing. We are
confident, not boastful. We create desire without pressure. Our sentences are often
short and declarative. Here is an example sentence from a previous piece that nailed
our voice: "The Loire Valley doesn't announce itself. It unfolds."

Audience: Women aged 28–42 who follow home decor accounts, read publications like
Apartment Therapy and Condé Nast Traveler, and buy gifts that feel considered. They
have likely been to Europe or aspire to go. They purchase experiences as much as
products.

Positioning: These candles are an experience, not just an object. Buying the Champagne
candle is buying a piece of a place — a sensory memory for people who have been there,
and a vivid anticipation for those who haven't.

Specific ask: Include one genuine sensory description for each candle (3–4 sentences
each) that describes what the scent actually evokes — not just the fragrance notes,
but the place and moment. Make them specific enough to make someone stop scrolling.

Hard constraints:
- No phrases like "warm your space," "perfect for any occasion," "elevate your home"
- No exclamation points
- Do not open with "At Lumier Home, we believe..."
- End with a soft call to action that creates desire without pressure

Format: Prose introduction (2 paragraphs), then one section per candle with a bold
header, then a closing paragraph with CTA. Total: approximately 600 words.

The Output (reproduced in full)

The Terroir Collection: Five Places. Five Scents. One Way to Bring Them Home.

There is a French concept that wine people use: terroir. It means the complete natural environment in which wine is produced — the soil, the slope, the rain, the light. It is the reason that two vineyards separated by three miles can produce wines that taste like different countries. Terroir is the argument that place matters. That where something comes from is inseparable from what it is.

The Terroir Collection starts from that argument. Five candles, five regions, each one an attempt to bottle not a wine, but a landscape. A particular quality of light. A specific way the air smells when the season is right. We worked with fragrance houses to get the places right, not the labels.

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is the smell of an old stone cellar in late September — the harvest complete, the barrels full, the château quiet. Warm cedar and cassis open into something deeper: the mineral edge of aged wood, a whisper of dried rose, the particular darkness of a room that has held a thousand vintages. You do not need to have been there to recognize it. Some places live in the imagination before you arrive.

Burgundie

The Burgundie candle smells like the walk between vineyards on a gray October morning — damp earth, ripe fruit just past its peak, cold air carrying the faintest note of smoke from a farmhouse chimney somewhere over the ridge. It is earthy without being heavy. Complex without being difficult. The fragrance of a place that has nothing to prove.

Alsace

Alsace is the candle for people who love a contradiction. The region sits at the crossroads of French and German culture, and the candle reflects it: white florals and ripe pear layered over a base of warm spice and green herb. There is something almost pastoral in it — the particular peace of a village that has survived enough history to stop worrying about it.

Loire

The Loire Valley doesn't announce itself. It unfolds. Soft green notes — fresh grass, cool water, a suggestion of white flower — give way to something warmer underneath: beeswax, a touch of honey, the sweetness of fruit still on the branch. This is the candle for quiet afternoons. For rooms that are already everything they need to be.

Champagne

Champagne is the only candle that smells like a moment. The opening is bright, almost sharp — the first note of a sparkling wine poured from height into crystal. It settles into something warmer: toasted brioche, a trace of white peach, the particular warmth of a room full of people who are genuinely happy to be there. Some candles set a mood. This one marks an occasion.

The Terroir Collection is available now. Each candle is hand-poured in small batches, 55-hour burn time, and packaged in a matte black vessel with a removable lid that works as a decor piece long after the candle is finished. If you have been, these will bring you back. If you haven't, consider this your preview.

Analysis

This output required no meaningful editing. Alex submitted it to her marketing director the same day, with two small word changes. What made the difference?

Specific brand voice description: The phrase "a well-traveled friend who makes you feel cultured without making you feel ignorant" gave the AI a relationship dynamic to model — not just adjectives but a social position. The included example sentence ("The Loire Valley doesn't announce itself. It unfolds.") gave the AI a concrete demonstration of the voice's rhythm and register.

Audience precision: Moving from "women who care about home aesthetics" to "women aged 28–42 who follow Apartment Therapy and Condé Nast Traveler, and buy gifts that feel considered" gave the AI enough cultural reference to calibrate its vocabulary and reference points. Note that the output references "publication like Apartment Therapy" implicitly through its tone — the AI knew what kind of reader this was.

Conceptual positioning: Explaining that the candles are "an experience, not just an object" — and specifically that buying one is "buying a piece of a place" — gave the AI a thesis to execute, not just a topic to cover. The entire post flows from this positioning.

Sensory specificity instruction: "Not just fragrance notes but the place and moment" told the AI that the candle descriptions needed to be experiential, not categorical. The output shows this: "the particular darkness of a room that has held a thousand vintages" is not a fragrance note — it is an experience.

Hard constraints that were specific: The constraints Alex included were all specific and enforceable: named phrases to avoid, no exclamation points, a specific opening restriction. The AI honored all of them.

Format specification: The exact structure requested (prose intro, per-candle sections, closing CTA) was delivered precisely.

Time Alex spent editing this output: 4 minutes (two word choices she personally preferred)

Lessons for Practice

Total time investment comparison: - Prompt 1: 30 seconds to write, 52 minutes to edit - Prompt 2: 10 minutes to write, 28 minutes to edit - Prompt 3: 12 minutes to write, 4 minutes to edit

The 12-minute prompt saved Alex 48 minutes of editing compared to the 30-second prompt — a 4:1 return on time invested. Across a month of regular AI use, this compounding effect is substantial.

The critical insight: Alex did not need to know more about AI to improve her prompts. She needed to know more clearly what she wanted. The process of building Prompt 3 forced her to articulate: the brand voice (which she knew implicitly but had never written down), the audience (which she knew but had never specified precisely for an AI), and the positioning (which she knew but had been leaving to inference).

The prompt was not just a better prompt. It was also a useful artifact — a written distillation of what Lumier Home's content should be. Alex now uses a version of this prompt structure as a template for all Lumier Home content.

Applying This to Your Work

If you regularly produce branded content and find AI output consistently off-brand, the issue is almost certainly missing brand voice context. The fix is:

  1. Write one paragraph describing your brand voice as a relationship ("we are like a [relationship type] who [characteristic]")
  2. Find 2–3 sentences from your best existing content that perfectly capture the voice
  3. Add these to every content prompt as a "voice context" block

This takes 10 minutes to set up once and transforms every content interaction thereafter.