SFA’s advertising club Ad Hoc has teamed up with the Mass Communications and Marketing students to prepare the district ten American Advertising Federation competition, in which SFA will create an advertising campaign for Nissan. The project begins at the beginning of the fall semester and ends when SFA goes to the regional competition this April in Shreveport Louisiana. If SFA wins at regional’s they will go to the national competition in Austin Texas later this year.
SFA has been going to this competition for many years. They have created campaigns for brands such as State Farm, Hewlett Packard and JCPenney. Many of the ideas created by schools for these competitions have been used in actual commercials for these companies. The new State Farm commercials about a State Farm agent magically appearing to help you stemmed from ideas entered in the competition. The competition is a very good learning experience as it provides real life clients for student’s to work with in addition to having the huge advantage of winning this competition on your resume.

Dr. Linda Bond teaches the ad campaign class from the communications department along with Michael Tubbs from the art department. They have both been teaching the class for years. Tubbs an SFA alumnus even went to the competition as a student and provides very useful info on what to expect from a student’s point of view.
The way the competition works is each school is given a case study by the company telling them everything they need in the ad campaign. The case study tells a lot of information but most importantly it tells each school what the target demographic is and how much their budget is. Each school is given two semesters to work on their campaign.

This years Ad Campaign is for Nissan. The ad campaign class spent the first semester solely researching information about the target demographic which this year happened to be the multi-cultural millennial between the ages of eighteen and twenty five. The Millennials also known as Generation Y are a group known to be more tech savvy and more in debt. The Class traveled to Nissan dealerships, took surveys and held focus groups to figure out the basis of their campaign and what it should use to target their audience.

The Ad Campaign class has to make a thirty-two page campaign plans book. Which covers the whole marketing campaign. This includes research information, advertising strategies, budget management, and much more. While 32 pages might not seem like a lot. The Ad Class has to make sure that every page is utilized to its maximum potential. The book must contain a lot of information. This includes demographic information, budget analysis, a marketing plan, infographics and the actual ads meant to be used in the campaign. So when I talked to Conrad Aleshire one of the Graphic Designers working on the book, he said the two things he wish they had was “more time and more space”.

The campaign class is down to the wire on their book deadline. When I visited the Ad Design class this weekend many students were hard at work putting the finishing touches on the book and making sure everything was covered and coherent. Jessica Dunn the President of Ad Hoc said that “everything in the book should be crystal clear” and that “nothing should be left to interpretation”. The classroom was littered with papers and computers while students drank the last dregs out of Monster Energy drinks trying to stay alert and get the job done. When I asked Tubbs if he thought they were going to make the deadline which is this Thursday March 29th. He said, “ This years class is actually farther along than the class last year. I’m confident they will finish the book in time”. When he said this I could see there was relief in the room. Conrad Aleshire who had been frantically working on last minute advertisement for the book said “I was hoping that we would be finished and sipping on Margaritas by now but I’m glad that were doing better than last years class.”

Unfortunately the work doesn’t stop upon completing the book. Five students chosen from the group must give a twenty-minute presentation to the judges at the competition and present their plans book and campaign. The group will leave for competition Tuesday April 10th. The competition will last from the 11th to the 14th. Presentation times range from early in the morning to later in the day the 12th and 13th. The team won’t know when they’re presenting until they get there. Jessica Dunn a veteran to the competition said that “last year we were the first to present and there was no audience there to gauge their presentation from”. She thinks “the crowds energy helps the presenters as well as gains favor with the judges”. Jessica hopes that this year they get to present later in the competition because that means more time to rehearse and hopefully a livelier audience.

The Ad Team is excited and fearful at the same time of the competition, hoping they do well. The year before last SFA came in second place for their State Farm campaign by two points. This year they hope to come in first and go to the National competition. Regardless if they do well or not Conrad Aleshire says that “I really enjoyed the whole experience. I would like to win but regardless I got a good taste of what working in advertising will be like”.