Advertising students second at regional contest

Hayseed Creative, a team of students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications, placed second out of 11 teams in the American Advertising Federation National Student Advertising Competition District 9 contest April 22 in Dubuque, Iowa.

Yahoo!.com, was the client for the competition. Students were instructed to build on the current brand positioning by "developing a $10 million national communications plan, in order to engage the youth audience (specifically teens age 13-17) and encourage trial/adoption and sharing of Yahoo!'s youth-relevant products." The teams were required to develop plans that included advertising, partnerships, promotions and direct marketing as well as a recommendation on how to aggregate or modify Yahoo!'s existing product offerings to best suit the audience.

Michael Landau, director of brand marketing for Yahoo!'s Media Group and one of the five judges, said Hayseed Creative's TV commercials were "brilliant." Nick Chavez, senior manager of advertising and brand marketing for Yahoo!, also a judge, called the Web site "a superior concept."

Team account executive and UNL Ad Club president Stephanie Turman, a senior from Wahoo, accepted the award for the team. Other team members were Erin Breen, senior, Lincoln; Nate Custard, senior, Elmwood; Jeffrey Deans, graduate student, Lexington; David Ellerbee, senior, Hastings; Kevin Fuller, senior, Seward; Dan Gibson, senior, Lincoln; Jared Hardy, senior, Wahoo; Babar Khan, senior, Islamabad, Pakistan; and Dave Kortum, senior, Grand Island. The team's faculty adviser Amy Struthers, assistant professor of advertising.

Khan received a special Judges' Citation for his design work on the interactive Web component.

AAF's National Student Advertising Competition is the premier college advertising competition and provides more than 3,000 college students with "real-world" experience.

A color JPEG image of the Hayseed Creative team is available at the link below. Team members are (from left to right, back row) Nate Custard, Kevin Fuller, Jeffrey Deans, Jared Hardy; (left to right, front row) Dan Gibson, Babar Khan, Adviser Amy Struthers, and Stephanie Turman. Team members not pictured include Dave Kortum, David Ellerbee and Erin Breen.

CONTACT: Amy Struthers, Asst. Professor, Advertising, (402) 472-3528 (astruthers2@unl.edu)