A second opportunity was given to Ball State University students who are traveling to Orlando, Fla.. to compete in the nationals for an American Advertising Federation competition Wednesday. These students are members of the Ball State chapter of the AAF.
The news of competing at nationals was given to the students a week ago, advertising major Amanda Takacs said.
"I was surprised and I was excited," she said. "I'm anxious and happy to compete."
The National Student Advertising Competition allows the 250 Universities with AAF chapters to compete and create an advertisement for a real client.This year, students made a campaign for car and renter's insurance geared toward 18-to-25-year-olds for State Farm Insurance. The teams create a 32-page ad campaign and present it to professional judges at a district level.
Takacs, who just graduated last month, said the contest will be competitive and require teamwork. Although most teams competing have five students participating, Ball State's team will only have three because two of the members graduated and have jobs.
Ball State's team competed at the district level in Detroit in April and won second place. Second place teams are allowed to enter their campaign plan book in a national wildcard competition, which gives the second place teams the opportunity to compete again. The winning team will then go to nationals and compete with 18 other universities.
"The fact that we got second place at the district competition was an honor," Takacs said. "And now we are going to compete along with the first places, and I think we can sell our campaign."
The 19 finalists will show their presentations to professional judges from State Farm Insurance; the winners of the national competition will also sell their campaign to State Farm Insurance.
Associate professor of journalism Mike Hanley will travel with the students to the competition. This is Hanley's fourth time participating in a national competition with Ball State students.
The challenge in this year's competition is that the advertising campaign needs to be specifically for people 18 to 25 years old that can be either college or non-college students.
"The challenge is to motivate people to think about insurance, which is something most don't think about at this age," he said. "There has to be a creative side, too, in getting people's attention."
However, Hanley said he is optimistic about the results.
"Our campaign is pretty sophisticated," he said. "Our presentation is all about the client."
The participation of a Ball State team in nationals will not only help students build on their portfolios, but will also help the university department gain recognition, Hanley said. Ball State has participated four times in nationals in the last seven years. These teams made it to nationals in 2004, 2005 and 2006.
"I'm really proud of these students," he said. "I'm proud of them for stepping up to participate."
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