O.C. student team is national champ
June 16, 2010
A team of Chapman University students has placed first in the American Advertising Federation's National Student Advertising Competition, the university announced.
They beat out 120 teams nationwide including finalists from Texas State University, the University of Wisconsin and University of Nebraska.
Each year, NSAC partners with a corporate sponsor, which provides an assignment outlining the history of its product and current advertising situation. The assignment reflects a real-world situation, Chapman said. Students research the product and its competition, identify potential problem areas and devise a completely integrated communications campaign for the client. Each student team then "pitches" its campaign to a panel of judges.
This year’s sponsor was State Farm Insurance, which gave the teams the task of creating a hypothetical $40 million media advertising campaign for auto and renters’ insurance targeting young adults, ages 18-25, according to Chapman. Three State Farm executives judged the national competition.
Click here to read my previous post about Chapman beatingcUCLA, UCI, USC, Cal State Fullerton and others in the district competition in May.
Students Andreas Robichaux, Kimmy Kirkwood and Jon Blomgren were account directors for the Chapman team, whose members included students majoring in advertising, public relations, business, film production and graphic design. Professor Cory O’Connor of Chapman’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts was the team adviser.
Chapman has been competing in the event since 2004. This is its first national championship.
“It took seven years and several hundred students over those seven years to forge the Chapman model for success, but we hit it this year with State Farm," O'Connor said. It was a hard-fought victory during which Jon, Kimmy and Andreas proved themselves to be warriors of the highest caliber."
