By Samantha Berkhead
News Editor
The name ‘St. Bonaventure’ grabbed attention on a wide scale once again two weekends ago, but instead of a sports Cinderella story, it was an advertising one.
The university’s chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF) placed third of 16 teams in this year’s regional National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) in New York City, behind advertising giants Penn State and Syracuse.
For St. Bonaventure, a school where the only formal advertising education a student can get is through two courses and AAF experience, the chances of placing in the competition seemed low.
Students from each school had to create a fully rounded advertising campaign for Nissan, which sponsored this year’s competition – including two commercials, a campaign book and the tagline “My Road. My Ride.” Nissan’s primary criterion was for the campaign to appeal to three minority groups within the Millenial generation: African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Chinese-Americans.
“The focus on diversity was definitely something that scared us a little bit in the beginning,” Kimberly DeSimone, lecturer of marketing and AAF chapter adviser, said. “The first thing we did was snowball sampling — you literally ask people who are minorities to ask friends to fill in a survey, and then have them ask their friends and pass it along. Then, we also contacted a couple of schools outside of ours that had a higher count of minority students and asked if they would be willing to do some of the surveys.”
The students found something in their research that differed from their original expectations— results showed that none of the minority groups studied saw themselves as different from anyone else in their generation.
“Our research showed that all three demographics saw themselves more as Americans than their cultural backgrounds,” junior Sally O’Rourke, art director for the creative group, said. “We were able to put our own personalities and perspectives into it to make it the best it could be. For the commercial we did, we made sure to include as many personalities as we could think of. We showed sports, art, music, photography — just any kind of different thing that a Millenial would be interested in.”
DeSimone said the research results showed a cultural shift toward greater acceptance of diverse backgrounds, which worked to the group’s advantage.
We found that diversity is different today than it was even 20 years ago,” DeSimone said. “There was this idea that we are all diverse Millenials, whether you’re black or white, whether you have piercings or a tattoo, and that we could use diversity to speak to all Millenials as opposed to trying to go after minorities.”
As soon as a broad vision had been determined, the 30 AAF students worked in conjunction to create a three-dimensional campaign for Nissan that fulfilled project requirements.
“Our creative, promotions and (public relations) teams worked really close together,” senior Michelle McKernan said. “When you look at the whole picture, they really work well together. That’s one thing the judges said they liked, how well our book flowed.”
The group’s work entailed much more than the product most people remember — the commercial.
“It starts off with getting the case study in the fall,” senior Elyse Kosakowski, the group’s chief account planner, said. “You read it 17 million times and somehow have to figure out where to take this entire campaign. The research gets you started on which direction to take, and then we hand it off to creative, who take one sentence and build the entire campaign off of it.”
DeSimone said the campaign included a 32-page campaign book, an in-dealership marketing display and posters as well as the commercial.
By the time competition day arrived, each member of the group who was to present had his or her
Junior Danny Bush, the project’s creative director, had gone ahead and memorized his lines for the 20-minute group presentation within a few days of getting the script — and had never forgotten a single line during rehearsals, his peers said.
“Danny had his lines memorized, day one,” McKernan said. “It took us two more weeks to get off-script. He was the only person who, at his last part, forgot what he was supposed to say. He made something up and finished with ‘… And a bunch of other stuff.’ I didn’t know what to say, but we were perfect after that.”
Senior Cody Mangalsingh said St. Bonaventure’s presentation scored 9 out of 10 across the board.
“One of the things one of the judges said at our presentation was that in advertising, creative wins,” he said, “And we had by far the best creative in the building.”
Michael Jones-Kelley, lecturer of integrated marketing communications and co-adviser with DeSimone, said the group’s level of creativity did nothing but help it in the competition.
“They were, despite themselves, excellently creative,” Jones-Kelley said. “They had a natural tendency to deal with thing as committees.”
O’Rourke said placing so close to a school like Penn State in the competition felt as good as winning the first-place prize.
“Third is the best our school has ever done,” O’Rourke said. “When you look at schools like Penn State that have 300 advertising majors alone, where they pick the best of those 300, and we just have whoever applies, that’s pretty good to place right next to them.”
McKernan agreed.
“The judges were smiling the whole time,” McKernan said. “When we came in third, it literally felt like first.”
berkhesj10@bonaventure.edu
