The results are in for the American Advertising Federation’s Fifth District student ad competition- and the winner is the University of Kentucky. These students will get to go to San Francisco in June for the National competition and square off against teams from across the country. The client, Postal Vault, of Dallas Texas, was the first “small client” in the history of the competition and they gave the students a taste of a real world, with changes halfway through the assignment and some odd requests in the brief. As in all things advertising, the campaign presentations ran from the bad to the very good.
I’m in a position to know- I was selected to be the client representative on the panel.
The competition is still going on in some districts, so I will limit myself to say that reviewing the planbooks and presentations by 9 teams is a lot of work- but very rewarding. Often times in advertising we search out young talent to give us a fresh perspective on our business- and while I saw some incredible talent today- there is much to be said for the wisdom that comes from years of experience.
Watch this space in the near future for a tip sheet for building effective planbooks for this competition- and for making an effective presentation. For now, I just want to say it was an honor to be a judge, and that the process served as a reminder of how and why I love this business. If you ever get the call to be a judge on one of these competitions- I highly recommend it- even if it will mean missing sleep and a day or two of work.
Not only will you be giving something back- you’ll walk away with a creative battery recharge that will surprise and delight you.
Congratulations to all the teams- I hope this was a good introduction to our amazing field.
The other winning schools:
2nd. place Western Kentucky University
3rd place Ohio University
4th place Youngstown State
John Carroll University, Marshall University, Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Murray State University and Xavier University were the other participants.
Imitation is supposed to be the most sincere type of flattery- how ever; “Next Wave Marketing” in San Diego probably should be hiring us to sell their Fish Bubbles wall mounted aquariums.
How did we find out about this? Well, a small retail shop had the name of the product- and the name of the company (our name, by the way- since 1988) and our site was all she could find. We own the search category for “Next Wave Marketing • Innovation”- trust me.
As to Fish Bubble aquariums- we’ll probably own that category too, thanks to our really smart website talents. They are small, wall mounted, acrylic aquariums. Instead of paying for Google keywords to drive traffic to their site- they could just trust us to build a site that works. That’s why we’re The Next Wave- and they aren’t.
The latest hip thing to do in advertising is let your customers create the ads for you. In fact, Fast Company lists advertising creatives as one of six jobs that won’t exist in 2016- because:
“Talented amateurs making ads for fun and posting them online seem to be better at your job than you are. Bonus: No more “whither the 30-second spot” whining.”
Right now Mastercard is fishing for ideas for their “Priceless” campaign officially with a spot _____________ is _____________, etc.
Read more: on adfreakThe Consumerist or Ernie Schenck
Spending money making ads asking people to make ads- hmmm, sounds like the ultimate creative cop-out to me.
In the business- often time marketers with big budgets ask for Spec work- and that’s “Spec” as in “Speculative” not as in “Special.” If we like it- we’ll hire you. (See http://www.no-spec.com for the right answers to this practice).
We had Arby’s ask us for Spec work- my answer was that when they start serving roast beef- where people only have to pay if they like the sandwich- I’ll consider it. “The Apprentice” likes to use marketing tasks to evaluate Donald Trump’s future yes persons. It seems that every other task is to make an ad, or figure out how to sell something- yet most of the candidates aren’t marketers- and the job they are auditioning for isn’t a marketing position.
Advertising Age points out yearly that the ad industry isn’t paying competitively with other business fields- that managers, finance people and accountants all earn more. And granted, there are a ton of bad agencies doing crap work out there- but, in the end, someone has to be brilliant and change the Nike’s of the world from running shoe maker to lifestyle brand with “Just do it.”
So- before any more of you marketers consider letting your fans do the work- (see adcandy for more of this_enabling them with packaged flash clips on your site- take a look at what someone did with this Chevy Apprentice site tie in- and realize- maybe it is better to pay someone to do your spots afterall.
What do you think?
After watching this creative execution- using the crazy high budget shots to “sell” an SUV- the same “create your own spot tool” was used to create a comment on the insanity of these types of spots- click here.
