UA American Ad Fed Team Takes Second at National Competition
The University of Arizona’s American Advertising Federation club took second place in overall best presentation at the District 12 annual National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the UA’s highest placement in 20 years.
NSAC provides over 3,000 college students from over 150 universities with a hands-on experience by teaming up with major client sponsors and enabling participants to come up with strategic campaigns. This year’s corporate sponsor was Mary Kay Cosmetics. The mission: to take a $10 million budget and prepare a creative campaign with the central goal of attracting the millennial generation to the brand.
Eller marketing student and competitor Jordan Griffith said, “Our success was about a year in the making. We were all recruited last year and we got the case study in September.”The team of fourteen members spent the fall semester conducting hours of research and months’ worth of brainstorming, eventually formulating their campaign idea: #kayconfidence.
“When we got back from winter break we kind of went into overdrive and held a photo shoot, commercial shoot, and development of our social media campaign,” Griffith explained. “Once we finished everything we sent it off to our graphic designers, who made our unbelievably awesome competition book.” With the campaign plan in place, the materials ready, and hours of practice, the team was ready to take on the competition. Five of the team members presented in front of a panel of judges and walked away with a top placement.
“I would say that NSAC is the thing I am most proud of in my Eller experience,” Griffith said. “NSAC allowed me to learn how to create an advertising campaign from the ground up and present it to important industry professionals. It taught me how to work in a team with different opinions and ideas and combine them for the best outcome.”