A team of Iowa State students recently placed eighth in the National Student Advertising Competition, sponsored by the American Advertising Federation.

A group of 16 students, led by advertising professor Olan Farnall, traveled to Minneapolis last weekend to show Hallmark its full-scale integrated marketing plans.

“Student teams compete against one another at regional and national levels on real clients’ advertising pitches,” Farnall said.

This year, 123 schools competed at the district level, and the winner from each of the 14 districts was invited to compete for national honors, he said.

“We were supposed to develop an advertising campaign successful in getting greeting card consumers to consciously seek out Hallmark branded greeting cards,” Farnall said.

The company informed those competing that over 90 percent of people think of Hallmark when they think of greeting cards, but only 42 percent actually buy Hallmark cards.

“We had to get consumers to say, ‘I will buy only Hallmark,'” Farnall said.

To compete on the ISU team, students had to interview with Farnall just as they would for a real job, he said. Team members were recruited from both inside and outside the department.

The project began in October, and the district competition was held in April. ISU placed higher than the 12 other teams in the district from Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri.

“We beat all of them and earned the right to compete in nationals,” Farnall said.

This was Farnall’s first year as faculty adviser for the ISU team, and he said he and the team members learned a lot from the experience.

“We hope to do better next year,” he said. “This is big stuff for us.”

He said he was very pleased because the judges individually complimented the ISU team on several things the members did in their campaign.

“A couple of the promotional ideas we came up with probably will be implemented by Hallmark,” Farnall said.

Chris Bettin, one of three creative directors on the team, was satisfied with how they did at the national level.

“My disappointment was what they were looking for as part of the competition,” he said. “Now we know more of the different areas to focus on more, because that’s what they’re looking for.”

Farnall said the students did very well in representing themselves to the professionals.

“The strength of our competition this year was ‘killer creative,'” he said.

Farnall said the best thing about this competition was the experience the students gained.

“Nothing is closer to real-world experience,” he said.

“To many, it was an eye-opener to what is involved in putting together a campaign,” Bettin said.

Bettin felt the experience may also lead to a bright advertising future.

“I got more things for my portfolio,” he said. “I met a lot of people that could lead to job offers.”

ISU tries to enter competition every year, and next year’s team, again led by Farnall, will try to impress Toyota.

“We’re very proud of how well the students did and very thankful for the support we got from the school and the area advertising club,” Farnall said. “It’s just the best experience you can have for advertising.”