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TheBuzz
Erika Engle
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Chaminade advertising students win big
CHAMINADE University students have advanced to the National Student Advertising Competition, to be staged by the American Advertising Federation in June.
The Chaminade students won the top prize of $1,000 in the AAF District 13 (Hawaii) competition Saturday at Hilton Hawaiian Village, beating Hawaii Pacific University, which had won six times in seven years before Chaminade's win last year. The University of Hawaii at Manoa chapter did not compete this year.
This year's national sponsor of the advertising federation competition is Postal Vault, a company that makes thievery-resistant residential mailboxes.
Student projects had to reinforce target-audience concerns about identity theft, market the secure-mailbox category and establish sponsor Postal Vault as the brand to buy.
"We started in January and started doing research pretty heavily," said adviser Cliff Bieberly, instructor of the Chaminade's Advertising Campaigns class. This year's winning team "had the benefit of some research done by some students in another class I had in the fall," he said.
It took time, partly because "the students were targeting an audience that is older than the students, and it takes them awhile to figure out what motivates that demographic and how best to reach them," said Bieberly.
The students prepared a 32-page plan book and made a 20-minute pitch to judges during the district competition.
The class also received support from Chaminade's TV production students, who "helped out by making an infomercial for our presentation," he said.
The students also designed print ads, billboards, airport kiosks, "and all kinds of things," for Postal Vault, Bieberly said.
The winning presenters, Bryan Mathes, Colette Errico, John Phelps, Janine Marshall and Carlos Najarro will travel with Bieberly to San Francisco for the national finals, with expenses paid by the advertising federation. The district prize money, from Servco Pacific Inc., will be used for incidentals during the team's City-by-the-Bay stay.
Postal Vault has told participants that the national winner's ideas will be used in its advertising and marketing.
It was thought that last year's sponsor, Yahoo! might do the same, but Bieberly has seen no evidence of the winning team's work in Yahoo! advertising.
Win or not, the national competition is akin to college-level sports in that recruiters from big-time agencies appear, trolling for new talent.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at:
eengle@starbulletin.com