Category: Engaged Learning

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Creatives Take NYC

From April 25 to May 1, several of our students had the opportunity to tour and network with some of the world’s leading advertising companies during this year’s TAI creative NYC trip which serves as a discovery class. Dr. Mark Allen and Professor Willie Baronet planned and led graduate and undergraduate students in this unique immersive advertising experience.

“As always it was an inspiring and productive time in New York where we took our students to some of the best agencies in the world. Watching them meet our alums and seeing the amazing work they are producing is always a magical experience for me. This year we visited Anomaly, Ogilvy, Momentum, Walrus, NBC Universal, Kenneth Cole Studios, Translation and more!” – Willie Baronet

The first stop on the tour was Johannes Leonardo, a creative firm that encourages customer involvement on behalf of companies. TAI alum Tessa Conti gave us a tour of the distinctive JL church-style facility and updated us about her work with clients including Adidas, Amazon, and Kraft. Later on in the day, we went to Translation with Kaleb Mulugeta, a TAI graduate, and had breathtaking views of the Brooklyn Bridge. AdAge has named Translation the 2022 Agency of the Year and included it on their Agency A-List.

We began our Friday morning at Kenneth Cole Studios, where Maria Cuomo gave us a tour of the facility and shared some of Kenneth Cole’s advice. Despite being a fashion business, we learned about in-house advertising and the brand’s deliberate adherence to its identity. Amol Rana gave us a fascinating tour of Google and displayed some of his YouTube commercials. We had the opportunity to speak with several alumni for a Q&A session at the end of the week, during which we asked them questions regarding their post-college and professional lives and received some incredible advice.

The plan for the weekend was to visit Central Park, see shows on Broadway, and visit museums like the Whitney and MOMA in order to thoroughly immerse oneself in NYC life.

On Monday, we had a great start to the week by going to Momentum Worldwide, here they served us NY way. We learned everything there is to know about experimental advertising, which is the practice of leveraging technology to improve the human experience while creating memories for brands. Former TAI alumni Jordan Chlapecka and Allie Hartman talked about their experiences working with companies like Verizon, Nike, Coke, and AMEX. Next, we visited Ogilvy, where we met up with Helen Rieger and Morgan Hoff, two former SMU students. They were able to demonstrate several projects they had completed for Verizon, Nationwide, and Coca-Cola, but they also gave us advice on how to approach uncertain circumstances proactively when things could change unexpectedly. Deacon Webster’s Walrus was the final agency visit of the day, during which he explained his strategy of being calculating but yet humorous. We concluded Monday night with the senior dinner, where Willie and Mark gave inspirational speeches and many of us shed tears as our seniors begin a new chapter in their life.

On our last day, we began with a visit of the SNL and Jimmy Fallon sets at NBCUniversal. Michael Reidy, an SMU alum, welcomed us with breakfast before the panel discussion began. The panelists stressed that while our creativity will make us stand out, we must also enter this phase of our life with passion and resiliency. Eric Damassa led the final agency visit of the trip, which was Anomoly. Anomoly strives to cooperate with companies like eos, Ranch Water, and Obie that align with its mission. We concluded the trip with the Alumni Networking Event, where we had the chance to socialize with other alumni who live in the city and sing a few karaoke songs to round off our time together.

Overall, there are not enough words to describe our trip, so be sure to watch our reel on Instagram at @smu.advertising!

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Winning the Big iDea Takes More than Just a Great Idea!

A chance meeting while working in the hall at ULEE, SMU Psychology student and Neuroscience Lab Research Coordinator Madison McMahan met Advertising Professor Dr. Carrie La Ferle. After several conversations, they got to know each other. Recently, Madison shared her Big iDeas business idea: Panacea!

More than Instagram or Facebook. More than a dating app. Panacea helps people easily make friends based on shared interests and hobbies.

Taking cues from the world of advertising , Dr. La Ferle gave Madison some general ideas to consider for making a winning “pitch and presentation” on her Big iDeas Business Competition pitch.

After her Panacea idea won, Madison shared her enjoyment of the Big iDeas journey and learning how to start a business. “I had such wonderful encouragement from my family, friends, the Engaged Learning Team and SMU faculty Carrie La Ferle, Bruce Snider, and Carlos Martinez! This experience has given me huge insights into marketing, planning, advertising concepts, and the overall business world. The skills I have gained will help me in the future, especially with the things that I am super passionate about such as helping people find friends.”

Madison plans to launch the app in July and hopes everyone to be able to join Panacea to form new friendships.

To find out more about Panacea, or to be notified when the app is ready, please visit the website or email panaceaconnectionisgood@gmail.com.

Congratulations Madison and to the other 2021 Big iDeas Business Plan winners!

Find out more about Engaged Learning and Big iDeas at SMU.

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INDUSTRY CONNECTIONS: Stone Boutique Partners with Campaigns Students

Stone Boutique is a Dallas-based fine and rare stone showroom that brings cutting-edge slab technology to the interior design consumer. Owners Francisco and Margarita Acosta are dedicated to disrupting the industry by leveraging their patented technology to pioneer a new start-to-finish purchasing experience. They explain:

“For us, discovering a once-in-a-lifetime slab is a magical experience. Over the course of our first 30 years in the industry, we watched in awe as pieces forged by the history of the world’s most intriguing places were unearthed, only to be delivered to the customer through a lifeless, inefficient, and frustrating processes. It wasn’t good enough for the customer or for us.”

The Acosta’s aspire to increase sales, expand offerings globally, and roll out a proprietary process to revolutionize the consumer journey. They have partnered this fall with Professor Peter Noble’s campaigns course seeking a complete integrated marketing and messaging strategy to achieve this goal. “We partnered with Stone Boutique for two reasons. First, they provide our senior advertising students with an unusual challenge — their business spans both business-to-business and business-to-consumer product categories. And second, with their proprietary technology Stone Boutique has the potential to rapidly grow from a relatively recent start-up into a leading global brand. They’re poised to disrupt the entire stone industry. At this stage in their brand development, Stone Boutique was interested in raising and enhancing awareness of their revolutionary stone selection process,” Noble explains. Temerlin students are eagerly working on the campaign; two teams will present a plans book and virtual presentation to the client early next month.

Our students greatly benefit from working with real-world class clients such as Stone Boutique.

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FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: Can Design Help Combat Homelessness?

Evictions are a serious national issue and extreme weather events displace thousands, houselessness is one of our society’s biggest challenges. Professor Willie Baronet is excited to participate in the new exhibition Houseless where Alaska’s Anchorage Museum invites visitors to considers ways design can contribute to solutions.

Design thinking helps break down complex problems and integrate new information and opinions while acknowledging there is no one right answer. The Houseless project provides a space for awareness, education, and creative problem-solving around housing security supporting individuals and communities in problem-solving together.

Willie Baronet began WE ARE ALL HOMELESS in 1993 due to the awkwardness he felt when he pulled up to an intersection and encountered a person holding a sign, asking for help. Like many, Baronet wrestled with whether or not he was doing good by giving them money. “Mostly I struggled with my moral obligations, and how my own choices contributed in conscious or unconscious ways to the poverty I was witnessing. I struggled with the unfairness of the lives people are born into, the physical, mental and psychological handicaps. In my struggle, I avoided eye contact with those on the street, unwilling to really see them, and in doing so avoided seeing parts of myself. That began to change once I began asking them if they would sell their signs.” Baronet’s relationship to the homeless has been powerfully and permanently altered. The conversations and connections have left an indelible mark on his heart. He explains “I still wrestle with personal questions regarding generosity, goodness, compassion, and guilt. And what it means to be homeless: practically, spiritually, emotionally? Is home a physical place, a building, a structure, a house? Or is it a state of being, a sense of safety, of being provided for, of identity? I see these signs as signposts of my own journey, inward and outward, of reconciling my own life with my judgments about those experiencing homelessness.”

Opening night, WE ARE ALL HOMELESS at the Anchorage Museum

Houseless is an installation of hundreds of the signs Baronet has purchased over the past two decades. “This is the largest WE ARE ALL HOMELESS exhibit to date, and I’m honored to be a part of Houseless at the Anchorage Museum. I love how this project is integrated into the classes I teach at SMU, where many of my students have volunteered to help AND have been inspired to start their own purpose-driven projects, which contributes to our desire to teach principled advertising. I’m also very excited to be working with students from SMU’s Human Rights program led by Rick Halperin. Some of his students have volunteered to work on the WE ARE ALL HOMELESS non-profit impact campaign in order to meet their class requirements. I always love finding ways to collaborate across disciplines at SMU” explains Baronet.

To learn more about this initiative please visit http://www.weareallhomeless.org/ and watch Willie’s award-winning documentary Signs of Humanity which is available to stream on Amazon.

 

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SXSW: Realself // House of Modern Beauty

Charlotte Cutts & Noemie Mwanzuzi

The road to SXSW was different for all of us. Some of us got here Thursday others drove early Friday morning and one of us unfortunately was under the weather.

While the first two days were filled with long walks and  sessions like Designing better ecosystems, Advertising detox, and design thinking in practice we woke up early to finally see what all the hype was about realself/ House of modern beauty.

Upon arriving there was a wait but badges had priority. We signed a disclosure form and entered the house to explore. The RealSelfHouse of Modern Beauty offers consultations and treatments of Dysport, Emsculpt, HydraFacial, Invisalign, Natrelle, Restylane, SkinCeutical, TempSure Envi, and Vivace. Various assistants of the brand, dressed in Millennial Pink, approached us and discussed the benefits of each procedure and service. Surgeons and service providers were readily available to answer any questions. Walking through the house there were displays of success stories from procedures. We saw some travel sized goods and mistakenly thought we could get them. As we progressed through the house into the backyard there is a cute little bar covered in vines and dressed with pink flowers. Very chic and modern. Further into the backyard there were make shift  tents with women getting procedures done as well as a stage for beauty panels through out the day.

Overall, the activation was clean, bright, feminine, and youthful! The procedures appear to be very professional and trustworthy. 10/10 would recommend.

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PROGRAM FEATURE: Why take a MayTerm or JanTerm Course?

MayTerm or JanTerm courses are not just if you need an extra class or are trying to make up for a failed course. These short courses, 11 class days and eight class days respectively, can be super beneficial and enjoyable. In both situations there are no other courses being taken at the same time so a student’s focus is only on the readings, lecture notes, and assignments of that one specific class.

Mayterm courses are about four class hours a day and JanTerm classes are about eight hours a day, so usually there is no time for extracurricular activities or part-time jobs. At first, this might scare off students, but it is only for 11 or eight class days and you are done with a three credit course for your major or minor as well as potentially a UC requirement. Also, during these two weeks, one’s focus only being on the course material helps learn the concepts well. Students can review material and continually be using and building on material from the day before and the day before that, while the professor can take additional time to review difficult concepts not always possible in class during a regular semester.

I have taught 17 week courses, JanTerm and MayTerm classes as well as 5 week summer sessions. I really think many students do better and enjoy learning the material in a shorter term course when they have only the course material to focus on.

The other element is the bonding that happens between students and also with the faculty member and students. Since people are together every day and for long periods of time, you really become a team in learning the material and working together while almost having a family like feeling. The latter point is further conducive to learning the material while enjoying the time spent learning.

For students unsure about how they would do in a course or nervous about the content, a short semester course is a great option. The average grade when I teach has typically been a little higher than the class average in a regular 17 week long semester because students learn the material better with few outside distractions. Students who sometimes struggle in a bigger class or during a 17 week semester, often find more opportunities within the class to clarify concepts and certainly outside of class time with the opportunity of seeing the professor every day.  In many cases, a MayTerm or JanTerm course is smaller during these off semester learning opportunities, which again allows for deeper learning and richer dialogue in the classroom.

On this last point, the smaller and more intensive structure allows for interesting projects to arise that may not always be possible during a longer session or with a larger class size. One year, my MayTerm ethics in advertising course undertook a volunteer opportunity to help clean up a nearby park. In the process, they learned about the park and the neighborhood in order to create a marketing plan for how to engage the community in using and taking care of the park. This past MayTerm (2018) we tackled the issue of Mental Health and students developed proposals for matching brands with different facets of Mental Health with the goal of bringing awareness to the issues and to help normalize the conversation.

Please consider a short-semester course in your future. The Temerlin Advertising Institute often offers courses in Ethics, Production, Advertising in Dallas or Advertising in NYC as well as Campaigns. Check out your course catalogue online to see what might be available for you.

By Carrie La Ferle, Ph.D.
Distinguished Teaching Professor
Temerlin Advertising Institute

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AWARDS: TAI 2017-2018 Student and Faculty Awards

It’s time to celebrate another wonderful year of student and faculty accomplishments. We’ve recognized the achievements that make the Temerlin Advertising Institute an award-winning institute at SMU, and we could not be more proud of our talented students and faculty.

Below are all the industry and special awards earned by our students and faculty during the 2017-2018 academic year.

Industry and Special Awards

Industry Recognition

  • AAF’s Most Promising Multicultural Student – Jennifer Nelson and Eric Sedeño
  • AAF American Advertising Awards (ADDYs) – Samantha Butz, Lucas Crespo, Tiffany Giraudon, Jolie Guz, Madeline Khare, Grace LaMontagne, Grey McDermid, Kirsty McLauchlan, Caroline Moss, Jennifer Nelson, Helen Rieger, Eric Sedeño, Matthieu Smyth.
  • AAF Stickell Internship – Austin Inglett and Dalya Romaner.
  • AFF 10th District Scholarship: Alissa Llort and Avery Lewis
  • Advertising Education Foundation MADE Internship: Eric Sedeño
  • Alliance for Women in Media (AWM) Dallas Irene Runnels-Paula McStay Scholarship – Alissa Llort
  • DFW Interactive Marketing Association Scholarship – Hannah Tymochko
  • DSVC National Show Best Print Advertising Campaign, Best Copy & Judge’s Choice – Tiffany Giraudon, Laura Walsh and Caroline Moss.
  • National Student Advertising Competition, SMU-TAI’s Ad Team: Third Place and Special Judges Award for Best Market Segmentation

Student Organizations

  • SMU Ad Club Officers
Joanna Fennessy President
Sara Jane Stephens
and Alex Mackillop		 Co-Membership Chairs
Lex Pedraza Treasurer
Peyton Turbeville Event Planning Chair
Eric Sedeño Communications
  • National Student Advertising Competition | Ad Team –
    Hayley Banas, Myla Borden, Mary Charles Byers, Amy Cooley, Rita de Obarrio, Harrison Fiveash, Anne-Marie Geisler, Alissa Llort, Alex Mackillop, London Mercer, Shelby Pointer, Juan Reyes, Sara Jane Stephens, Sara Ann Whiteley and Frank Zhang.

Institute Scholars

  • Engaged Learning Project –  Samantha Butz
  • Morris Hite – Zachary Crosby
  • Roger and Rosemary Enrico – Andrea Rosas

Honors

  • Alpha Delta Sigma – Joanna Fennessy
  • Kappa Tau Alpha – Arin Forstenzer, Tiffany Giraudon, Caroline Moss, Rachel Kainer, Cheyenne Tilford.
  • Hunt Scholar – Riley Blair
  • SMU Mortar Board Top 10 Sophomore – Rachel Kainer and Jolie Guz

Institute Awards

The Best Students. The Best Faculty. The Best Advertising
TAI STUDENT AWARDS:

  • TAI Anchor Award – Given to a student(s) who consistently “pulls more than his/her weight” in bringing projects to fruition: Matthieu Smyth.
  • TAI Donald John Carty Leadership Award –Given to a student(s) in recognition of leadership in the classroom, the Institute and beyond:
    Cheyenne Tilford.
  • Face of TAI Award – Given to a student(s) who represents the Institute within Meadows, SMU and/or the advertising industry:
    Joanna Fennessy
  • TAI Optimizer Award – Given to a student(s) who demonstrates a desire and aptitude to make work better through superior work strategies and iteration: Alissa Llort and Eric Sedeño.
  • TAI Outstanding Graduate Student – Given to a student(s) who best represents the academic and professional pursuit of the field:
    Coral Pisek.
  • TAI Resilience Award – Given to a student(s) who deals effectively with project setbacks while maintaining a positive attitude and demonstrating a resolve to produce outstanding work: Kirsty McLauchlan
  • TAI Social Impact Award –Given to a student(s) who exemplifies aspects of social responsibility in their advertising work and beyond:
    Anna Proctor.
  • TAI Service Award – Given to a student(s) who renders substantial service to the campus at large as well as in the greater community:
    Rita de Obarrio
  • TAI Team Player Award –Given to a student(s) in recognition of contributions to team projects and activities:
    Sara Jane Stephens and Jolie Guz.
  • TAI Outstanding Academic Achievement in Creative – Tiffany Giraudon.
  • TAI Outstand Academic Achievement in Digital – Rachel Kainer.
  • TAI Outstanding Academic Achievement in Strategic Brand Management – Cheyenne Tilford.
  • TAI Student Marshal at Graduation –
    Caroline Moss.
  • TAI Undergraduate Reader at Graduation –
    Alex Mackillop
  • TAI Graduate Reader  – Deja Sanders. 

 

 TAI FACULTY AWARDS

  • Scholar of the Year  –
    Dr. Hye Jin Yoon
  • Service Exemplar   –
    Professor Mark Allen
  • Teaching Innovator  –
    Professor Cheryl Mendenhall
  • TAI Research Fellows  –
    Dr. Sidharth Muralidharan and Dr. Carrie La Ferle
  • Professor Inspiring Excellence –
  • Student Support Superstars –  
    Dr. Alice Kendrick, Professor Mark Allen, and Professor Willie Baronet
  • Adjunct Professor Extraordinaire  – Gordon Law
Awards Lunch Room
Dr. Edwards on Stage
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WPromote: “Profit Driven Marketing with Facebook”

Wpromote is a digital marketing agency headquartered in California has regional offices in Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, etc. It is also known as the challenger agency and focuses on search marketing, paid & earned social media, and marketing intelligence. This April, Wpromote partnered with Facebook and held its first profit-driven marketing summit. It was an invitation based exclusive event, and two of our TAI faculty, Anna Kim and Hye Jin Yoon were invited. Last year, the agency had a similar event with Google.  

Dr. Kim and Dr. Yoon at the Event.

It was an all-day event and well-attended by industry professionals. It is interesting to note that Dr. Yoon and Dr. Kim were the only academic professionals. They said, they really enjoyed the program. “The summit not only offered us an excellent opportunity to meet industry professionals but also informed us many interesting new trends as well as challenges that today’s media industry is facing. Keynote speeches and sessions were organized around the following three themes: leveraging profit-driven marketing & customer lifetime value (LTV), new customers acquisition, and visual storytelling through video.” 

 
Here are some notes from Dr. Yoon and there’s a link in the bottom where you can download some of the presentations from Wpromote. Unfortunately, presentations from Facebook are not provided due to the sensitive nature of some of the content, it is Facebook’s policy not to distribute their presentations.
 
  • Businesses need to adopt mobile first strategies: consumers are increasingly discovering products through mobile, there is 41% faster content consumption on mobile than desktop, and on average, consumers search fewer products on smartphones than desktops before making a purchase.
  • eCommerce goes global: cross-border e-commerce with emerging economies have taken off; businesses need to be there effortlessly across the globe; these countries never had strong desktop culture and have leaped on to mobile, which creates a different set of opportunities.
  • Mobile video content is exploding: video is a primary way to discover and buy products and leverage video as merchandising tool affords highly dynamic immersive experiences.
  • Visual storytelling through video creative that converts: customers want to see themselves in your product; visuals are processed 60K times faster than text by the human brain; visual storytelling can help every stage of the consumer’s journey; great video isn’t about things, it’s about action (verbs before nouns); focus on people, their goals, and how the brand can help accomplish them.

Summit Promote Presentations (click the link for download)
Click here to learn more about Wpromote and its first-ever profit-driven marketing summit.

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SMU-TAI’s Ad Team Brings Two Trophies Back to Temerlin

The 2018 SMU-TAI’s Ad Team, led by advisor Professor Amber Benson, competed with universities from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, in the AAF District 10 Convention, ADVENTION, in Corpus Christi, Texas on April 15, 2018. They placed third overall and took home a Special Judges Award for Best Market Segmentation in this year’s National Student Advertising Competition. Additionally, TAI students Avery Lewis and Alissa Llort were awarded AAF Tenth District Scholarships. All-in-all a great weekend!

Third Place and Special Judges Award for Best Market Segmentation

TAI student Harrison Fiveash said he could have not been more excited with the outcome in Corpus Christi. “Not only placing third, but receiving the Special Judges Award for Best Market Segmentation is a true testament to how hard and cohesively our team operated,” he said.

Strategy Development and Research

Ad Team members had been working hard since the beginning of the Spring 2018 semester when they began doing research and strategy development for Ocean Spray, this year’s national client. The challenge was to drive relevancy of the brand for older millennials across both food and beverages.

With the concept BREAK OUT OF THE BOG, the team created a memorable campaign designed to give older millennials, aged 25-34, new reasons to purchase Ocean Spray throughout the year, by leveraging the health benefits, and highlighting Ocean Spray’s responsibility to the environment and to their farmers.

The team was asked to target older millennials, but they broke it down a little further to reveal a sweet spot in the millennial market that would provide Ocean Spray the highest lifetime customer value. How? by introducing the HENRYs. A HENRY is a “High Earner that is Not Rich Yet.” They view the brands they buy as a reflection of themselves, and improve their personal brand equity by buying from brands that they have a positive relationship with. Since HENRYs are both early adopters and social influencers, investing in them would create a halo effect that would influence the rest of the 44 million older millennial target.

After harvesting research insights, the team came to the conclusion that when it comes to the HENRYs, the brand is bogged down. These millennials tend to buy Ocean Spray products during the fall-winter holiday season, are unaware of Ocean Spray’s extensive product line, are skeptical about health claims, and don’t know about all the amazing things Ocean Spray does as a company.

The team decided to build on the existing brand equity of Ocean Spray’s highly popular “Straight from the Bog” campaign by breaking the Bog Guys, Justin and Henry, out of the bog and placing them in scenarios which align with the interests and values of the target market. All they needed to do, was to BREAK OUT OF THE BOG.

Four team members, Amy Cooley, Harrison Fiveash, Alex Mackillop and Sara Jane Stephens presented the team’s work to a panel of industry judges at the competition, with the goal of leveraging Ocean Spray’s social responsibility and their healthier and celebration-worthy products; showing that Ocean Spray could become more than just a Thanksgiving staple, a sugar-filled juice cocktail, and another corporate name.

Presenting Team: Harrison, Sara Jane, Alex and Amy.

Going to Corpus Christi to compete in the National Student Advertising Competition was an incredible experience for Ad Team Leader Sara Jane Stephens. “It was so wonderful to see the team’s handwork pay off. Our presentation went really well, and Harrison, Amy, Alex and I had so much fun presenting our campaign to the judges and the audience,” she said. “I am really proud of the team and very grateful to Dr. Edwards and Professor Benson for their guidance and hard work.”

Ad Team Leader Amy Cooley believes the hard work and late nights that the team put into the entire campaign and presentation were validated by the awards received. “I could not be more excited to have received two awards at NSAC this year,” she said. “This experience more than anything has prepared me for the real world in advertising, and I’m so thankful to have been able to be a part of it all.”

Advertising majors are required to complete ADV 4399 Advertising Campaigns as part of their curriculum. This class combines major advertising theories with practice, allowing students to develop and present an advertising campaign to a real client based on current advertising challenges that the client is facing. Students that take Advertising Campaigns during the Spring semester have the opportunity to participate in the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC). Recent NSAC clients include Tai Pei Frozen Foods (2017) Snapple (2016) Pizza Hut (2015) Mary Kay (2014) Glidden Paint (2013) and Nissan (2012).

TAI Brand Management Student, Alissa Llort, said that being a member of SMU’s Ad Team was her most rewarding college experience. “I just loved the experience and would do it all over again,” she said. “Being part of the SMU Ad Team this semester allowed me to immerse into the actual process of building a campaign and experience the real advertising life!”

Ad Team Members in Corpus Christi, TX: Rita de Obarrio, Anne-Marie Geisler, Alex Mackillop, Harrison Fiveash, Sara Jane Stephens, Amy Cooley, Alissa Llort and Frank Zhang.
TAI Students and Faculty at the Awards Presentation in Corpus Christi, TX.

Please join the Temerlin Advertising Institute in congratulating this year’s SMU-TAI’s NSAC team on their outstanding work and accomplishments!

Members of the 2018 SMU-TAI’s NSAC team are: Hayley Banas, Myla Borden, Mary Charles Byers, Amy Cooley, Rita de Obarrio, Harrison Fiveash, Anne-Marie Geisler, Conrad Li, Alissa Llort, Alex Mackillop, London Mercer, Shelby Pointer, Juan Reyes, Sara Jane Stephens, Sara Ann Whiteley and Frank Zhang.

 

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SMU-TAI’s Ad Team: Expectations for the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC)

Now that the campaign for Ocean Spray has been created, SMU-TAI’s Ad Team has begun to get their final presentation ready for the AAF District 10 competition in Corpus Christi, TX. The members that were selected to present the team’s work to a panel of judges shared their expectations for the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC).

Amy Cooley– Advertising major on the Strategic Brand Management and Spanish major. 

“This is my second year on Ad Team, so it feels good to know what to expect going into the competition. I think that our campaign strategy is really strong, and we have an incredible team of presenters (if I do say so myself) so I’m excited to see how all of our hard work is going to pay off!”

Alex MacKillop – Advertising major on the Strategic Brand Management track with minors in Business and International Studies.

“We have all worked extremely hard for this moment, so I think it will be very satisfying to see all our work come together in the final presentation. Everyone on the team contributed so much to this campaign and we are all very excited to see it through. “ 

Harrison Fiveash – Advertising major on the Strategic Brand Management track with minors in Communications and Arts Entrepreneurship.

“I cannot wait for all of our hard work to come to fruition. Amy and SJ have been great leaders throughout this process, leading the charge in both coordination and execution. Professor Benson has also been extremely helpful in balancing a hands-off approach with corrective guiding. While there may just be four of us presenting, it took a small army for everything to come together. I hope to win and eventually move on to Chicago, but if not at least we gained a lot of experience and felt the real pressures of a hypothetical campaign.”

Sara Jane Stephens – Advertising major on the Strategic Brand Management track with a minor in Spanish.

“I’m extremely excited for the upcoming NSAC competition in Corpus Christi. Amy, Harrison, Alex and I have a lot of energy, charisma, and chemistry on stage, which makes our presentation memorable. Not to mention, our campaign strategy is really thorough and definitely makes us a strong contender in the competition. We’ve put in a lot of long nights and hard work into this, and I know that will be clear during the presentation!”

SMU-TAI’s Presenting Team: Harrison, Sara Jane, Amy and Alex.

The team will present their integrated campaign at the AAF District 10 Convention, ADVENTION, on April 15, in Corpus Christi, Texas. The winning team(s) from each district will advance to the 2018 semi-finals, which will take place over two days, on May 2–3, 2018. Between 16 and 20 teams will compete for one of eight spots in the finals. Eight finalists will then compete for the national title at the annual ADMERICA conference, which will take place in Chicago, Illinois in early June.

TAI is confident in Ad Team’s effort, abilities and talent. We wish them the best of luck at the NSAC district competition this weekend!

For more information about NSAC please visit the competition website.