Mass communications students earn accolades at advertising awards competition

By Tom Gresham

Students from Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Mass Communications were prominently represented at one of the advertising industry's premier awards competitions last month.

The VCU Adcenter, a master's program, boasted four teams among the One Show finalists in the college division, while an undergraduate team of VCU advertising students also grabbed a coveted finalist spot. The finalists were chosen from more than 940 entries from around the world.

Adcenter students featured among the print category finalists were the teams of Chris Guichard and Thompson Harrell, and David Grindon and Patrick Maravilla. Two other Adcenter teams — Dave Ramirez and John Verrochi, and Luke Behrends, Carrie Ammerman and Andrew Aquino — were finalists in the client pitch division.

The undergraduate team, which was a finalist in the print category, consisted of art director Emily Delayen and copywriter Michael Ng. Judy VanSlyke Turk, Ph.D., director of the School of Mass Communications, said she did not know of an undergraduate from VCU ever being named a One Show finalist before.

Bridget Camden, an associate professor of advertising at VCU, said earning One Show recognition can serve as a career boost for college students. Each team has its entry published in the prestigious annual, "One Show: Advertising's Best Print, Radio and TV," which is circulated widely in advertising circles.

"It's an exclusive club," Camden said. "It's kind of the show of all shows in advertising. Being a finalist commands a lot of respect. For a student, it's a great way of putting your foot in the door somewhere after college."

Delayen and Ng's One Show entry was borne of a class Camden teaches. She required each of the students in the class to develop an entry for the One Show competition. She said Delayen and Ng's product was one of several stellar entries to originate in the class.

"I'm really proud of these students," Camden said.

Contestants in the student competition were required to devise an ad campaign around Hybridcenter.org, a Web site that provides information about hybrid vehicle technology. The three advertisements Delayen and Ng created used three other brands — Verizon, Calvin Klein and Citibank — to highlight the negative effects of vehicle pollution. The ads showed models on billboard ads reacting to clouds of exhaust.

"It was advertising that was joking about advertising," Camden said. "I thought the students were really smart in their approach. Their work was compelling."

The students' recognition comes on the heels of another recent success for the undergraduate advertising program. Othelo Gervacio and Scott Spaulding, two students in Camden's portfolio development class in the fall, had their campaign for Land-O-Lakes butter selected in a nationwide contest to appear in CMYK Magazine — a placement Camden said would get them "huge national exposure."