Communications More Awards for Ad Lab Team The meeting room in New York’s World Trade Center fell silent April 28 as the announcement came over the loudspeaker: "This year’s District Two winner is Ithaca College!" The winners --- Ithaca College’s Ad Lab team members and their instructor, assistant professor of television-radio Scott Hamula --- were then presented with the regional National Student Advertising Competition (NSCA) award, an enormous trophy resembling the Stanley Cup. The Ad Lab is a senior-level workshop in which students plan and execute an advertising campaign for a corporation, organization, or specific product. The class formulates a full campaign that includes media strategy, market positioning, and advertising campaign design. The results are then presented at the annual regional NSCA, which is sponsored by the American Advertising Federation (AAF). Regional winners go on to compete at the national level. This year the Ithaca team’s client, assigned by the AAF, was Daimler Chrysler. Hamula attributes the team’s success to a combination of factors. "The overall campaign directly addressed the client’s specific needs, while the creative execution was attention-getting, interesting, appropriately humorous, and easily identifiable by the various target audiences," he said. "Moreover, our presenters did an excellent job of communicating our ideas." The regional trophy, which will spend the year on display in Park Hall, has been to Ithaca before: Ad Lab teams won the district championship in 1985, 1986, 1988, 1993, and 1995. The team went on to win the national competition in 1993. Although the Ithaca Ad Lab team did not win at the nationals, held June 10 in Cleveland, it did place in the top 10. This year’s regional winners were disappointed at their national showing but took the results in stride. "In a way, I am sort of glad that we didn’t do as well as we’d thought [we would], because now I know what it is like to work for an advertising agency, I know what it feels like to win, and I know what it feels like to lose an account," said Erin Bull ’01, one of this year’s presenters. , all in all, I am happy with the way things turned out." Her teammate Beverly Kaik ’01 seemed to feel the same way. "Ad Lab," said Kaik, "is one of the greatest memories of my IC career."
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A. Ozolins, Ithaca College Office of Publications, 27. Nov. 2001