VCU undergraduate advertising program enjoys banner awards season

By Tom Gresham

Students in the undergraduate advertising program in Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Mass Communications have been racking up the honors this spring, garnering an impressive collection of awards in elite competitions.

Most prominently, VCU undergraduate students will be part of the One Show, the premier advertising awards contest in the United States, which will be held in New York from May 5-9. First, two teams of undergraduate students from VCU were named finalists in the One Show College Competition, an international contest of the best student advertising projects in the categories of print, television, innovative marketing, interactive and poster design. In addition, the VCU undergraduate program was selected for the second consecutive year to provide student portfolios for inclusion in the 14th annual One Club Student Exhibition, a curated exhibition that is staged during the One Show.

The two VCU undergraduate teams named finalists in the One Show College Competition were selected from a field of thousands of entrants. VCU was one of 17 undergraduate programs to have students selected as finalists. (Among the graduate, portfolio and international programs with finalists in the competition is the VCU Brandcenter, the university’s graduate advertising program, which has a team in the television category.) 

VCU undergraduate students selected for the One Show College Competition are David Canavan and Theresa Gutridge, who were picked in the print category for “Doritos Spill,” and John Zhao, Kearsten Feggans and Brandon Dunlow, who were chosen in the interactive category for “Doritos Love Music Video.” Winners, who will be announced on May 8 at the One Show, receive the iconic One Show pencil.

Hundreds of programs were invited to submit their best work for the student exhibition, but only 33 programs – 23 of them undergraduate – were selected for the show. The exhibition, which runs May 5-7 and is open to the public, aims to present the portfolios of the top senior advertising students in the country. The exhibition’s location at the One Show offers the students ideal exposure to industry leaders.

In other awards competitions this spring:

VCU won 10 silver and gold medals at the Western Virginia ADDY Awards, the local awards of the American Advertising Federation. Chip Stevens and Kyle Asay received the Student Judges Choice Award for a McCann’s Oatmeal magazine ad.

VCU won six District 3 ADDY Awards, which included schools from Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Of the four gold medals VCU students won, two were selected for special recognition. Alyssa Collins and Erin Martin were judged Student Best in Show for their work on a Nutella magazine ad, and  Stevens and Asay received the Student Special Judges Award for their McCann’s Oatmeal magazine ad. Both the gold and silver medal winners advance to the National ADDY Award competition.

VCU dominated two categories at the 2008 Design Contest for College Students at Michigan State University. VCU students won first place (Derek Heilman for “Stopglobalwarmingnow.com”), second place and both honorable mentions in the Promotions category, and they won first place (Chris Choi and David Hallmark for “Kiwi Shoe Polish”), second place and three honorable mentions in the Advertisements category.

Carly Reed and Peter Colon earned a Bronze Award in the Richmond Show, the annual competition of the Richmond Ad Club, for their ad for the Poe Museum.