ADTEAM’s Amazing Win

Lorianna Logan, an advertising student at JWU Providence, tries to put into words a truly unforgettable experience: JWU’s recent 1st place win in the National Student Advertising Competition, held by the American Advertising Federation. Read about her involvement:

After analyzing 770 eating circumstances, 600 concept test responses, 298 surveys, 134 observational store visits, 80+ focus group respondents, & 90+ secondary sources, you know what the Johnson & Wales University ADTEAM realized?

All our hard work paid off.

After the disappointing loss at districts last year with the Snapple campaign, winning Nationals this year with Tai Pei was just that much sweeter.

A lot more work goes into ADTEAM than most people see. We put our blood sweat and tears into creating our campaign. It goes beyond just making pretty advertisements and commercials. It is countless hours of research, conceptualizing, and writing. Lots and lots of writing. Especially as a copywriter – one of my roles on the team. There have been late nights in our Ad Lab — from 2am to 3am, then 4am.

This is where the ADTEAM’s tradition of taking clock pictures late into the night comes into play. We’ve even had all-nighters. Our team would coming right to work after class and not leaving until we had class in the morning.

Upon winning our District competition and moving on from the Regional competition, finding out we would be going to New Orleans was a sight to see. There was lots of crying, hugging, and screaming. With the national competition, we were in New Orleans for about 4 days.

Of course, the team did get to enjoy the city and sightsee, but our work wasn’t over yet. We practiced every day in preparation for our presentation to the judges. There were a lot of nerves, but nonetheless we were all excited and ready.

When it finally came time to present to the judges, it was the best feeling in the world. Within the first 20 seconds I could feel all the earlier nerves going away. I was confident, I could do our presentation in my sleep, and I knew our campaign like the back of my hand. The second we finished and the room went into thunderous applause, I knew. I knew all our hard work paid off. Even if we didn’t win, at that moment I couldn’t have been more proud, of my team, of my advisors, and myself.

Fortunately, though — we did win! I thought moving on from Regionals was a cry fest. I’ve never seen so many happy faces. I personally never felt so happy, that was one of the best moments in my life. Overall, doing ADTEAM goes beyond the late nights, even the competition. It is the most real world, agency-like experience a student can get without actually being at an actual agency. I’m so glad I started early, beginning my freshman year, the experience has been like no other.