National Student Advertising Competition
Team 386 - Webster University - Genba Creative
Tai Pei - "Flavor in Your Favor" Campaign
Each year, the American Advertising Federation (AAF) sponsors the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC).
For each competition, a national corporate sponsor is selected and provides a brief history of its product and current advertising. Presented as a real-world client scenario to challenge critical thinking abilities and creativity, students are given a case study
and a few files including logos and product packaging, plus a small amount of research data from an AAF affiliate.
University and college teams from advertising and marketing programs across the country must research the product and competition. Teams work in an agency setting with jobs in Account Management, Copywriting, and Art Direction. They identify potential setbacks and must develop a fully-integrated communications campaign for the client in an agency setting.
Each team then pitches its campaign to a panel of judges. There are three rigorous levels of competition:
Districts (in-person with AAF judges), Semi-Finals (virtual with client), and Nationals (in-person with client & AAF judges).
Over 230 colleges and universities participated in the 2017 competition.
At Districts, Webster University won 1st place, Outstanding Graphic Design Award, and Best Instructors Award.
Webster went on to pass Semi-Finals and took 5th place at Nationals in New Orleans.
In the Tai Pei Summer Showdown on social media, Webster took 3rd place even after a hyperlink error sent votes to another team for an entire day. The Summer Showdown also netted Webster $1,250 towards the university's NSAC program and
a year's supply of product vouchers for the team (we donated to Operation Food Search).
Personally, I also earned the "Above and Beyond" award from our class instructors.
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Plans Book
There are strict guidelines for each team's plans book.
(Team version shown - judges' book has different front/back covers without identifying information)
Each team is allotted 26 pages of content, plus covers.
The printed copy of this book features soft-touch covers, smooth semi-gloss pages, and lay-flat binding.
Competition requirements also included a multi-media presentation with 4 presenters and script,
a 20-minute pitch time limit for in-person competitions and a 10-minute virtual presentation for semi-finals.
Three password-protected external links to multi-media elements including at least one commercial were also required.
Now that the competition is over, the links and passwords are below:
Translook Preview - Password: translook386
Website Preview - Password: website386
Commercial Preview - Password: hulu386
I was honored to have significant roles in this book including research, photography,
photo manipulation and retouching, graphic and content design, page layout,
pre-press production, editing, and working directly with the printer.
This was one of the most memorable projects I have ever worked on,
and I am so fortunate I had the opportunity to be part of this team and competition.
