Manship School advertising team wins fourth in the nation

09/09/2015

By Julie Hebert

The LSU Advertising Team had an outstanding performance in the Spring 2015 Semester, placing fourth in the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC). The team is composed of over thirty students split into four groups- Social Media, Creative, Media Planning and Research. They are supervised by Dr. Kasey Windels and Dr. Yongick Jeong.

In February, the team received their client, Pizza Hut. While other schools get a full year to work on their project, the LSU Advertising team accomplished this goal in half the time.

Research started right away, conducting focus groups and surveys to relay back to their team. Sean Rowland, a member of the Research group said “We had to get it done within the first few weeks of class.”

All of the groups worked at full speed to create a winning campaign for the first round in Knoxville, Tennessee. Fellow team member, Anna Kalmbach said “Hours of preparation go into these groups. Everyone works equally hard.”

The Advertising Team advanced to Super Regionals where they had to send in a book and speak with the judges on a conference call. “For hours we would go over fake questions that the judges might ask,” said Rowland. After the second round was over, the team had to wait on the results.

The team anxiously waited on a conference call reading out the qualifying schools to go to nationals. LSU was the last school called.

The room erupted with excitement. “They had a great positive attitude, they believed in themselves,” said Dr. Jeong.

The team flew to Las Vegas, Nevada where they would compete, watch presentations from other schools and network with the top advertising agencies in the country.

After placing fourth, several students have achieved internships and jobs with advertising agencies around the nation. Dr. Kasey Windels said “We made a much better impression on the agencies we encountered.”

For more on the LSU Advertising Federation, visit http://lsuadfed.org/