BBDO (Atl) CEO gives advice to UGA students attending Cannes Lions

Students from the University of Georgia studying abroad at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity were treated to a guest seminar featuring Chris Hall, President/CEO of BBDO Atlanta. Hall identified three important insights to take away from the festival:

• Creative communication is far more effective than unimaginative communication. For example, award-winning creative campaigns are 11 times more effective than campaigns not winning awards.
• We are in the golden age of creativity. Technology is making communication possible that was previously unimaginable. Hall said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.”
• Good creative work is a team effort. Hall pointed out that creative work is a team sport involving many hard-working individuals. He also stated that integration is essential for any good agency, describing the process as “orchestrating the idea over the creative landscape.”

Another point made by Hall is that winning creative awards attracts clients. Afterward, students asked follow-up questions regarding the advertising culture in Atlanta, client scrutiny, and ethical considerations in the age of social media. BBDO-Atlanta is a leading agency based in Atlanta and part of Omnicom.

--Posted by Tommy McConnell (UGA student)

UGA students at 2011 Cannes Lions fesitval

June 2011 marks the second consecutive year UGA students are studying abroad at the infamous Cannes Lions festival. The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is the largest international advertising event with over 8,000 participants and 29,000 entries. UGA has the largest presence of any university during the week of the festival. Students are hearing about the state of the advertising and communication industries as well as getting a glimpse of the future.

Students get the opportunity to sit in on sessions with Malcolm Gladwell, Piers Morgan, Martha Stewart, Nick Jonas, Wil.i.am, and other notables. Students also get exposure to advertising icons such as Martin Sorrell, John Hegarty, Maurice Levy, and Bob Greenberg among many others. The festival offers a full week of seminars, workshops and master classes.

UGA students also get special opportunities to meet exclusively with leading professionals. This year's line up includes:

• Susan Lilley, USA Today (U.S. Cannes Lions delegate representative)
• Julie Winskie, Global President, Porter Novelli (Grady grad)
• Noel Cottrell, Creative Director, Fitzgerald (creator of E*Trade's "Talking Baby" Super Bowl commercial)
• Nancy Seliger, Senior VP, Fleishman-Hillard
• Greg Pinelo, Creative Director, GMMB (2009 Titanium winner for "Obama for President")
• Jennifer Frommer, Senior VP of Global Brand Partnerships, Interscope Records (Eminem / Lady Gaga)
• David Simon, writer/author/TV producer of HBO's "The Wire," "Treme," "Generation Kill"
• Allison Arden, Publisher, Advertising Age
• Claude Brown, Microsoft Advertising (UGA alum)
• Amr Salama, Egyptian film maker (highly involved in Egypt's involvement in the "Arab Spring")
• Chris Hall, CEO, BBDO-ATL

This year 23 students are fortunate to get a VIP tour of Microsoft Advertising's Experience Center, a showcase of the company's latest consumer technology, and a special invitation to the Microsoft Advertising's beach party.

Students are learning about the latest thinking regarding social media, digital, research, cause-related marketing, innovation, and the future of media... and collecting as many business cards as possible.

AdPR Young Alumni Spotlight: Meghan Ann McMullen

Meghan Ann McMullen graduated from UGA in 2010 with a degree in Advertising and is currently living in Atlanta.

What are you doing now and how did you get there?

I am working at Group M Motion in Atlanta- I am an assistant media buyer/junior buyer. During my senior year, I participated in an internship in Atlanta. I was going to school full time and working part time in Atlanta- commuting back and forth. This internship, compiled with my prior experience, served to open up several doors for me when graduation rolled around. I was able to network while still finishing my senior year. The connections that I made my last year at UGA were the ones that led me to my job at GroupM Motion.

What is your favorite Grady memory?

My favorite Grady memory would have to be my senior year campaign's class. Our final pitch for Bed Bath and Beyond will forever be embedded in my memory. I remember stressing so much over our final presentation and working long hours attempting to perfect our strategy. Half of our team had to miss out on Easter with our families because we had to scrap our whole creative idea and start from scratch. We ended up winning the pitch, however, I am more proud of all of the hard work that my team displayed all semester long!

What advice do you have for current AdPR students?

Work hard. Do not be discouraged in the job hunt- I interviewed at 8 different places before I found the right fit. Never underestimate the power of networking- you never know where it may lead!

New UGA Spot to Run in Football Games Created by Grady Alums

When UGA grads weren't happy with the PSA about UGA that was being run during nationally televised football games, Grady Ad grad, Mike Martin (Founder/Creative Director of Skylab-B and Writer/Designer at Martin + Owen), decided something needed to be done. Rather than just complain, he wanted to try to do something positive.

Mike assembled a team of UGA grads including Ad grads Ron Huey (President/Creative Director, Huey+Partners) and Jason Hatfield (Senior VP, Account Service, Trend Influence) and UGA Film major Glen Owen began developing a new PSA. With permission obtained from the university, the crew started filming today on north campus. The shoot involves a production crew with many UGA grads and more than 150 extras.

They enlisted the help of three Grady Ad majors (Becca Wilson, Cory McCollum and Will Isom) and two aspiring Ad Grads Kirsten Ott and Sawyer Bernstein) to serve as Production Assistants. Dr. Parker Middleton and Dr. Karen King were also on hand to help out. Special thanks to Dr. Strausbaugh-Hutchinson's ADPR 3110 class for coming by to be extras at the last minute.

Watch for the spot on football games this fall! In the mean time, check out the trailor teaser on Facebook on the UGA Chapel Bell site.

AdPR Faculty Profile: Advertising Professor, Dr. JooYoung Kim

Dr. Kim is an Associate Professor of Advertising at University of Georgia in the Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication.

What classes do you teach?

Advertising Campaigns (Undergrad/Grad), Global and Multicultural Advertising (Undergrad/Grad), Advertising Research (Grad), Quantitative Research Methods in Mass Communication (Grad), Advertising Management (Undergrad)

What is the focus of your research?

Advertising integration effectiveness, brand extension, brand loyalty, and consumer emotion

What is your relationship with your students (undergrad and grad)?

I am connected with many undergraduate students through social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook. My relationship with graduate students is not only for research but also about making long-term friendships in academic life. Sometimes it feels that we are like a family.

What do you do in your spare time?

Golf! Still struggling but an avid golfer. My goal this year is to break 90 consistently.

How do your experiences in advertising in South Korea effect or translate to your work here?

My experience in advertising in Korea is a unique one that can contribute to my research and teaching. I have used many Korean ads in my Global and Multicultural Advertising class. Persuasion styles between Korea and the U.S. are often very different. Students can really take on new perspectives in terms of creative and message strategy from watching Korean ads.

This past semester, what account did your Advertising Campaigns class work on?

My campaigns class participated in Direct Marketing Education Foundation's (DMEF) Collegiate ECHO Challenge. Each year, the sponsoring client is different and this past year it was charity:water, a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Five teams in my class submitted their projects to DMEF and we should know the results of the competition in July. I am excited to see how charity:water evaluates the ideas from my student teams.

Find out more about Dr. Kim here.

PR interns featured at See.Spark.Go.

Two aspiring UGA public relations students are interning this summer at See. Spark.Go., a marketing, event and media relations agency based in Athens. Jessica Seagraves and Heather Green will get an opportunity to work for clients such as Chick-fil-A Leadercast, Nike, and Skadaddle Media among others. The firm is run by Andy and Brittany Thoms. Brittany is a UGA public relations alumna.

Read a profile of Jessica and Heather here.

Bateman Team Wins PRSA Silver Anvil

The 2010 Bateman Team from UGA, who won the national championship last spring for their work on the Census campaign, won the PRSA Silver Anvil yesterday! The UGA student team won this top PR campaign award in competiton with seasoned professionals. Very impressive!
Team members were: Kristin Ballard, Courtney Garmhaus, Debbie Ebalobo, Magan Cowart and Bridgett Johnson. The account executive for the team, Kristin Ballard, was onhand to accept the trophy at the awards ceremony in New York City.
Team advisor, Dr. Kaye Sweetser, wants to thank PRSSA and Dr. Betty Jones for sponsoring the team's entry in the awards competition.

Two Ad Grads Added to Grady Alumni Board

We are pleased to welcome advertising grads Dana Todd and Mike Martin to the Grady College Alumni Board.

Dana Todd is VP of the Performance Innovation team at Performics which collaborates with Performics' global network and partners to explore and evaluate opportunites throughout the performance marketing landscape. She and her team combine proprietary solutions with platform partners to unlock incremental and big-win opportunites across emerging media and new technologies. Since 1996, Todd has driven value for hundreds of companies, helping them find actionable insights and success in interactive marketing. Her career spans a variety of practices including search marketing, first leading San Diego interactive agencies Bien Logic and SiteLab, then founding SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) and its training arm SEMPO Institute. Most recently, Todd launched Newsforce, a starteup that redefines how companies think of advertorial and sponsored content. She is a favorite speaker at Search Engine Strategies, ad:tech, OMS, SMX, OMMA and regularly provides insight to the financial press and industry.

Armed with an undergraduate degree in Advertising from The University of Georgia, a stint at Oxford studying the History of the Reformation and two years of post-graduate work in Art Direction, Mike Martin started his career at DDB in Dallas where he created award-winning advertising for Midway Video Games. Tabasco Hot Sauce and JCPenney. Next, he spent four years in Boston working for Arnold Worldwide. His work for The American Legacy Foundation's "truth" campaign (anti-tobacco industry) helped create one of the most successful and highly-awarded advertising campaigns ever. During that time, he also helped Monster grow into the premier online job-recruiting site and served up some creative nuggets for McDonalds.

Boston wasn't cold enough for Martin, so he was off to Minneapolis and Carmichael Lynch where he worked on national brands that included Harley Davidson, Fetzer Wines and Jack Link's Beef Jerky which he helped win and manage. When his hometown of Atlanta came calling, he moved back and served as Chief Creative Officer at Fletcher Martin. But soon the entrepreneurial bug bit him and in 2007, Martin started his own boutique, creative agency Skylab-B, which he currently owns and manages.

Over the last several years, Martin has created fully integrated, cross-platform campaigns for the Department of Homeland Security launching the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. He worked on presidential political campaigns, The Prekness Stakes, Coke Zero and public service campaigns for the American Lung Association. In order to expand his expertise into the branded entertainment sector, Mike partnered with the acclaimed film director Glen Owen to launch Martin+Owen in 2009.

Martin's work has been recognized by numerous marketing industry awards including the One Show, D&AD, Clios, Mercury Awards and Communication Arts Magazine. He still contends that his greatest work was the birth of his twins last December.

PR professor's research featured in Hispanic Executive Magazine

Public Relations professor Dr. Carolina Acosta-Alzuru's research was recently featured in the article "Drama Fiends" in the May/June 2011 issue of Hispanic Executive, a magazine that features articles about the Hispanic community, as well as corporate and international leaders and entrepreneurs.

The article discussed the Hispanic audience's insatiable appetite for drama-filled telenovelas (Spanish soap operas). Dr. Acosta-Alzuru and her research are referenced throughout to enhance the article's main points. She says that telenovelas are part of everyday Latino family life. She also addresses the fact that many of the modern-day telenovelas are based on an underlying love triangle, with the protagonist being strikingly beautiful and naive, the antagonist being beautiful as well but also conniving, and the male protagonist as typically very handsome but not so smart.

Additionally, the article referenced Dr. Acosta-Alzuru's findings that many US Hispanics have grown up watching their parents' and grandparents' addiction to the daily adrenaline of the daily cliffhangers that are a common telenovelas trope. So, as the kids grow up, they too take up the habit.

Click here to see related news about Dr. Acosta-Alzuru and her telenovela research.

Twelve AdPR students tapped for Phi Beta Kappa

Congratulations to the 2011 AdPR inductees of Phi Beta Kappa, an honor society that celebrates and advocates excellence in the liberal arts and sciences. To qualify for induction students must have a GPA of 3.8 and have completed 120 credit hours at the end of the semester.

2011 Inductees:

Monica Cresse (Advertising and Spanish)

Joshua Delaney (Advertising and Theatre)

Lia Catherine Conrad (PR and Speech Communication)

Sara Fon (PR and Spanish)

Michael Harris Gray (PR and Economics)

Rebecca Holton (PR and Spanish)

Lauren Locher (PR an Spanish)

Kaylea Notarthomas (PR and Psychology)

Kathryn Simpson (PR and English)

Erin Elizabeth Racher (PR and Psychology)

Erin Wilson (PR and Psychology)

Jamie Woodhead (PR and French)

UGA advertising students win 2011 Collegiate Effie

A big congratulations to a team of Grady advertising students who won a top national student competition. Thom Pulliam, Melissa King, and Trent Lyle won the Collegiate Effie Brand Competition, an award synonymous with creatively effective advertising.

The team was challenged to create an integrated multi-channel campaign to drive awareness and consideration of MINI's new Countryman among 20-30 year olds. On May 18th, they presented their campaign to a team from MINI USA and won! Congrats again on this outstanding accomplishment.

Faculty Agency Immersion

Six Grady ADPR Faculty members travelled to Columbus, Ohio this week to spend two days at sbc Advertising, an award-winning ad agency. The Grady team lead by Department Head Dr. Tom Reichert, included Dr. Karen King, Dr. Joe Phua, Dr. Elli Roushanzamir, Dr. Karen Russell and Dr. Jeff Springston, spent time with a variety of sbc's advertising and public relations professionals during the visit.

sbc professionals who participated included Karen Raidel and Elizabeth Hestand from Consumer Planning, Joe Sano and David Smith from Interactive, Scott Mylin and Lance Dooley from Creative, Jim White from Media and Zach Bingham, Keri Drake and Mary Garrick from Public Relations. The Grady faculty attendees were overwhelmed with how generous sbc professionals were in sharing their time, expertise and best practices.

This trip was made possible by sbc Executive Vice President/General Manager, Matt Wilson, whose daughter Becca is a senior ad student at Grady.

Four UGA advertising students chosen for national Multicultural Advertising Internship Program

UGA advertising students Phillip Fain, Shandrea Evans, Tien Phan, and Anthony Agabaere were selected for the American Association of Advertising Agencies' (AAAA) 2011 Multicultural Advertising Internship Program. This summer the students will experience agency life first-hand while taking on real job responsibilities and learning from industry professionals.

Phillip Fain, an advertising MA student, will spend the summer in New York City interning for EURO RSCG Worldwide. Shandrea Evans, a junior advertising major, will be in Richmond, Virginia working with the Martin Agency. Tien Phan who is a senior advertising and accounting double major, will be an intern with Archer Malmo in Memphis. Anthony Agabaere, a senior advertising major, will be working in Chicago with Draftfcb.

Congratulations to these outstanding AdPR students!