Ad Team Places First at AAF Districts

Update: The Ad Team won the second round of the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) and are now District Champions. In June, the group will head to Las Vegas for the the national competition ADMERICA2015.This is our fifth year in row of qualifying for Nationals. Congratulations to the team, and to coaches Oscar Chilabato and Christine Ure. (May 8)

JWU Providence’s Ad Team has another award for the shelf: They took first place at the district level National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) held at Simmons College in Boston.

Eight teams participated in this round of the American Advertising Federation-sponsored contest, including Boston University and Simmons College, which placed second and third, respectively, in the competition.

This Year’s Challenge
All college teams competing created an advertising campaign for Pizza Hut, which included all facets of advertising: television, radio, social media, and print. The JWU Ad Team campaign focused on getting consumers “excited” when ordering pizza online from Pizza Hut.

This is the fifth year in a row that JWU’s Ad Team won the regional competition; they have won 6 times in the last 7 years. Last year, they placed fourth in the AAF Nationals.

JWU Builds a Powerhouse Team
School of Business associate professor Oscar Chilabato began encouraging his students to try out for student advertising competitions his first year at JWU, thinking they sounded like “an interesting class project.” He quickly discovered they were much more.

Seven years later, Chilabato and co-coach Christine Ure have created a powerhouse team that consistently wins silver bowls for student creative excellence at Boston’s prestigious Hatch Awards. In addition, says Ure, “we’ve opened up relationships with some great agencies who recruit from JWU.”

Nationally, JWU Ad Team alumni have placed at 360i (Adweek’s digital agency of the year 2 years running), MEC Global, BBDO, McCann Worldwide, and Deutsche.

Next Stop: Regionals
Next up for the Ad Team: Seventeen teams, including JWU, will compete in the regional competition the first week in May. The top 8 teams will go on to Nationals in Las Vegas, Nev., on June 12.

Follow JWU Ad Team and the American Advertising Federation on Twitter.

Pictured: Ad Team presentation group (l-r) with their NSAC District Award: Trumane Trotman, Mollie Kane, Emmie Strommen, Leanna Stein, Grace Peterson, Karen Luna, Albero Berul, Lorenny DeLaCruz, Denise Alvarez, Andrew Ricci and Jessica Fleming