Ruth Brown

SDSU’s Advertising Club recently became a finalist in a national advertising competition for 5-Hour Energy. The group created a 30-second video advertisement for the energy drink.

“(The Ad Club) probably came up with about 35 different ideas and then narrowed it down to five and then asked our adviser, Roxanne Lucchesi, for her input to help us narrow it down,” said Tiffany Oliver, a senior advertising major and president of the Ad Club.

Because the club is one of six finalists in the competition, they received 555 bottles of 5-Hour Energy. Other qualifying schools include Boston University, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, University of Wisconsin-Madison and two videos from the University of Miami.

The club’s ad demonstrates them putting together a mural of the 5-Hour Energy bottle by using small pixels and putting them together one at a time. The advertisement ends with a message that says “What would you do with 5 hours?”

“I think their idea was very original and it brands 5-Hour Energy in a creative way,” said Lucchesi. “It has some broader thinking than some of the other videos in the contest. They were all good, but I think our group did a really nice job thinking outside the box.”

The club took two days to put together the video.

“I think it took like nine hours to cut out all the pieces and at least 12 to put together the whole thing,” said Oliver. “A good amount of time was also spent editing the video, that alone took quite a few hours.”

If the Ad Club wins the contest they will receive $5,555 to split among the 12 people that participated and an additional $5,555 will go to the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications. The club hopes to use some of the money to go to Advertising Week in New York in September.

“We really encourage people to vote online for our ad because that is 10 percent of the decision,” said Meghann Rise, vice president of the Ad Club. “Voting ends on April 5 and this is something that is definitely exciting for us.”

The judging of which video will win the contest is based on multiple aspects. Ten percent of the judging is based on the online voting, 50 percent is based on the effectiveness of the methods used in the advertisement, 20 percent is based on creativity and 20 percent is based on how well the group incorporated the elements that 5-Hour Energy wanted in the advertisement.

“We were absolutely thrilled when we found out we won,” said Oliver. “We really didn’t think that we would actually win. I think quite a few people entered the contest, so it’s exciting that we are a finalist.”

Team members include Tyler Bitner, of Rapid City; Stephen Brua, of Brandon, S.D.; Brandon DeBoer, of Clear Lake, S.D.; Travis Entenman, of Sioux Falls; Alex Johnson, of Hendricks, Minn.; Ben Lippert, of Sioux Falls; Tiffany Oliver, of Newell; Meghann Rise, of Sioux Falls; Brienna Rogers, of Brookings; Samantha Stratman, of Kennard, Neb.; and Catey Watkins, of Brookings.

“I think they really nailed it; the execution of the ad was perfect,” said Lucchesi. “It’s really fun to see students take a project and really make it their own and do well with it.”

Students can vote for SDSU’s ad entry at http://www.5hourenergy.com/5hourenergy101/default.asp.