Heather Mangan

SDSU students placed first at the American Advertising Federation’s (AAF) District 8 National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) on Saturday, April 23, in the Twin Cities and will advance to the final in Nashville June 4 – 7.

Each year, national businesses come to the NSAC with an advertising problem. Then NSAC presents the problem to universities across the nation for students to prepare and develop a campaign for that company.

SDSU advertising majors work on a campaign through a class called Integrated Marketing Communications Campaigns, which all advertising majors are required to take before they graduate, said Roxanne Lucchesi, course instructor.

This year, SDSU students developed a campaign for Yahoo! that is directed towards an audience ages 13 to 17. They spent a year researching and developing a campaign, a media plan, promotions, product innovations and a creative plan.

Their campaign, “Take it farther,” is meant to encourage people ages 13 to 17 to “take it farther” by using the Yahoo! search engine, Lucchesi said.

The campaign, created by 24 advertising students, competed against 13 other schools, including University of Minnesota- Twin Cities, Marquette University, University of Wisconsin and Minnesota State University – Moorehead.

Although SDSU has placed well, this is the first time SDSU won the competition since 1992.

Renee Halgerson, a presenter for the group and senior advertising major, said working on the campaign has given her real-life training.

“It really taught you about teamwork, leadership and it was great to finally see it pay off.”