Ad Team Finishes Up In Tulsa, Professor Wins Educator Award

The 2012 – 2013 Texas Tech “Infinity” Advertising Team placed 5th in their competition in the National Student Advertising Regional Competition for District 10 in Tulsa, Oklahoma last week.

The National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) is held annually across the nation. The winning teams in the regional competitions go on to compete in the national competition. Throughout the school year, the Ad Team builds an entire ad campaign for a client from the ground up. This includes conducting primary research, brainstorming and testing a creative concept, developing promotional events, designing a complete campaign book, producing commercials and print ads, and finally pitching all of it in a twenty-minute presentation to industry professionals. This year’s NSAC client for all schools is Glidden Paint in association with Walmart. The creative brief Glidden sent out to all the schools was centered around developing a campaign for a wide target market with a focus on nontraditional media and raising awareness for the product in Walmart specifically.Dr. Shannon Bichard

The Texas Tech Ad Team developed a campaign centered around the tagline “Color With Character.” The concept personified color as a means of awakening one’s inner creative character. The tagline can be viewed in two different ways: Glidden’s colors have character, and the consumer can literally color their walls with character. The team supplemented the concept with promotional events such as “Glidden on the Green” – a family-oriented miniature golf event designed to showcase Glidden colors with Walmart decor, the “Color of Prevention” – a Glidden-branded cancer prevention effort, and several in-store displays and promotional materials.

Dr. Shannon Bichard, pictured to the right, was announced as the winner of the 2012 – 2013 American Advertising Federation 10th District Educator of the Year Award for her many years of work as the head advisor for the Texas Tech Advertising Team.

Speaking as a member of the Ad Team, the competition this year was fierce. It’s always fun to sit in on other schools’ presentations, where you can see the genius or not-so-genius of other young advertising students from across the region. I lost count of how many times I looked at my fellow teammates and shot an “I’m impressed and jealous of this idea” look at them while watching another school’s presentation. Many schools focused on partnering Glidden with the Make-A-Wish Foundation to develop charity programs for community service. Other schools pitched elegant-looking iPad apps and microsites that showcased their campaigns in a cohesive and easy-to-use manner. “The New Hue” was one of my favorite taglines at the competition. Some schools even went so far as to create characters to represent the Glidden brand, much like “Mayhem” for Allstate. These ranged from cute (an animated, Mario-esque cartoon character named “Hugh”) to horrifying (headless mannequins in rainbow paint swatch outfits.) West Texas A&M University took home the gold in our competition with their “Fearless Brilliance” campaign, and they’ll be heading down to the national competition in June to represent District 10.

We held one of our very last ad team meetings last night, and the mood was bittersweet. The judges weren’t in love with our concept, but advertising is subjective. You have to roll with the punches. Any time you’re dealing with creativity in a competitive environment, you’re always going to have some people that just don’t like what you brought to the table. But this entire competition is not about winning; it’s about collaborating with a group of talented, intelligent students in order to create something that you’re proud of. It’s about building relationships. You tend to grow very close when spending countless hours building something with one another, so our trip to Tulsa was some of the most fun I’ve had all semester even though we didn’t place. Ultimately, I have Ad Team to thank for the bulk of my education in the advertising field. You can attend lectures all day, but true learning begins with experience.

Stay tuned to the Hub@TTU in the upcoming week to see the Glidden commercial I wrote and directed for our campaign in addition to the print ads the Ad Team produced. For those curious about the specifics of how we run the Advertising Team and all the work it entails, check out my blog post HERE.

Interested in joining the Ad Team next year? Email Dr. Shannon Bichard at shannon.bichard@ttu.edu.

About Taylor Shofner