St. John’s Students Take Third Place in Prominent National Advertising Contest

A team of St. John’s University students placed third in District 2 of the American Advertising Federation’s prestigious National Student Advertising Competition at Pace University in Manhattan, NY, on April 23.

“District 2 is perhaps the most competitive district in the country because our competitors are colleges and universities with excellent advertising programs,” said Neil Feinstein, Associate Professor, Division of Mass Communication, at The Lesley H. and William L. Collins College of Professional Studies (CCPS). The other competitors included teams from Pace University, Syracuse University, and Ithaca College.

“What made this year’s team so successful was their collaboration and sense of dedication,” Mr. Feinstein added. “They never settled for easy answers and kept digging and questioning. That’s the formula for a successful campaign.”

St. John’s 19-member team also received a Best Insight award, a special honor the judges bestowed, Mr. Feinstein said, “because of the quality of our research and the way the students were able to find a unique human insight that was the foundation of our advertising campaign.”

Half of the St. John’s team were students at CCPS who major in Public Relations, Advertising Communication, or Television and Film. The remainder of the team was composed of Marketing majors from The Peter J. Tobin College of Business. As a collaborative effort between Tobin’s Marketing department and CCPS, the student team members were hand-selected to participate in the challenge.

The competition is based on the premise that there is no better way to learn about the process of an advertising campaign than by developing a campaign for a real client. Each year, a corporate sponsor (client) provides an assignment or case study that outlines the history of its product and current challenge. The case study reflects a real-world marketing challenge.

Students must research the product and its competition, identify potential problem areas, and devise a completely integrated campaign for the client. Each student team then pitches its campaign to a panel of judges. Judging is conducted by professionals in the advertising, marketing, and communications industry. Judges at the national level are selected from the client and their advertising agencies.