An advertising campaign for a company’s lockable mailboxes has helped send a group of University students to a national ad competition after the group took first place in a regional competition last weekend.
Students with the University’s Ad Team won first place in the Northwest at the American Advertising Federation’s National Student Advertising Competition. They move on to the national competition in San Francisco later this spring.
Last weekend, they beat teams from across the Pacific Northwest in a competition to create a campaign for the Postal Vault company. Competing schools included Washington State University, Boise State University and Portland State University, which won the competition last year. There were nine total competitors in the regional competition, and the University’s team will compete with 16 others in the national competition.
Team member Melvin Goo said hard work went into the plan books the judges received before the final presentations.
“There were a lot of all-nighters every now and then,” Goo said. “All the judges would see our books before we presented them last weekend. We were marked for our books, for our main ideaand for our presentation.”
The team was presented with the additional challenge of devising a new logo and slogan for Postal Vault in January. The team changed the product name from “Postal Vault” to “Post Guard,” and it changed the logo to make it more appealing. That challenge was eliminated before the final presentations.
The team took a risk and stayed with its new slogan: “Your life is in the mail – protect it with Post Guard.”
Team member Nick Vranizan said competing with the changed name, slogan and logo was risky because it opened the group to criticism by the judges and the company.
Team member Jessica Kaseweter said she knew that sticking with the new slogan and logo was “risky, but we knew it was best for the client and in the long run it definitely paid off because the judges were really impressed and they loved it,” she said.
Kaseweter’s team was thrilled with the win, but all eyes are on the prize in San Francisco, she said.
“This is not the finale, and we still have nationals, but aside from that, when we heard that we won, it was so amazing,” she said. “When we’d finished our presentation we knew it was the best work we could have done.”
The team had a satisfactory feeling of victory when the winners were announced, Kaseweter said.
“When they announced (the winners) it was definitely exhilarating and it was great to know that our hard work had come together,” she said. “It was a team moment – everyone was so proud of each individual’s effort.”
The Postal Vault company will adopt the campaign belonging to the winner of the national competition, Vranizan said.
Nick Ngai, a former Ad Team member and current employee at Portland’s Borders Perrin Norrander advertising agency, believes he has his job because of his Ad Team experience. BNP handles advertising for Columbia Sportswear and Valvoline, he said.
“It’s a great experience and it helps you make contacts out in the world. I think it totally helped me get the job that I have now,” he said. “Five of us from the team last year scored advertising jobs and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we were involved in Ad Team.”
News Editor Jared Paben contributed to this report.
Correction
Because of an editor’s error in Thursday’s “University Ad Team wins regional prize,” the Emerald incorrectly spelled the acronym of the Borders, Perrin & Norrander, Inc., the advertising firm where Nick Ngai works.
Because of a reporter’s error, the Emerald left the “k” out of Ngai’s first name.
The Emerald regrets the error.