May 25, 2007

VCU Adcenter students win national award

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By Tom Gresham

First row: (left to right) Elisabeth Vanzura, Global Marketing Director of Cadillac; Zoe Bell, VCU Adcenter student; Katherine Capocelli, VCU Adcenter student; Carmen Velazquez, VCU Adcenter student. Second row: (left to right) Joe Quattrone, VCU Adcenter student; Slate Donaldson, VCU Adcenter student; John Gasloli, National Advertising Manager of Cadillac. Back row: Don Just, professor of Creative Brand Management at the VCU Adcenter.
First row: (left to right) Elisabeth Vanzura, Global Marketing Director of Cadillac; Zoe Bell, VCU Adcenter student; Katherine Capocelli, VCU Adcenter student; Carmen Velazquez, VCU Adcenter student. Second row: (left to right) Joe Quattrone, VCU Adcenter student; Slate Donaldson, VCU Adcenter student; John Gasloli, National Advertising Manager of Cadillac. Back row: Don Just, professor of Creative Brand Management at the VCU Adcenter.

A team of Virginia Commonwealth University Adcenter students on Wednesday captured the championship of the Cadillac National Case Study Competition, an annual marketing contest that featured 70 schools and 1,200 students this year.

VCU Adcenter students Joe Quattrone, Katherine Capocelli, Zoe Bell, Slate Donaldson and Carmen Velazquez received an all-expenses-paid trip to Detroit, where they made a final presentation to a panel of senior Cadillac executives and the account team from Modernista!, Cadillac’s ad agency. The Adcenter team defeated a team from the University of New Mexico’s Anderson School of Management, which had produced the competition’s winning team the previous two years.

The VCU Adcenter team that won the title was formed in a class taught by Don Just, a professor of creative brand management. The team included students pursuing graduate degrees in creative brand management, copywriting and art design.

“This is a terrific accomplishment and is yet another validation of how our curriculum, with its focus on collaboration, is ahead of any other in the country,” said Rick Boyko, managing director of the VCU Adcenter.

Teams submitted PowerPoint presentations addressing the contest’s case study. Two finalists were selected in both the graduate and undergraduate school categories and flown to Detroit to make formal presentations, which included a 25-minute PowerPoint presentation and a question-and-answer session.

Just said the judges spoke highly of the Adcenter students’ presentation.

“They didn’t tell us anything we could have done better,” Just said. “They said the effort was the most comprehensive and the most on point. The strategy was dead on. I don’t think we could have asked for a better review.”

The winning students will split a $3,000 prize.