The Ad Club went, the Ad Club saw, the Ad Club received the Best Promotions Award in the National Advertising Competition.

The Ad Club also received fourth place overall in the competition which was held in St. Louis on April 25.

The team competed against 11 other schools from around the Midwest. Team members integrated a marketing and communication campaign for the corporate office of Pizza Hut.

“Pizza Hut owns all the ideas we presented and the corporations get an enormous pool of ideas for their own companies,” said Rob Larson, senior in advertising.

The team started working on the competition in late October researching, planning and drawing a book that consisted of the team’s market strategies. The team worked up until it was time to depart for the trip.

“We worked really hard for the competition. We worked so long it seemed like we spent a little less than 2 million hours, and because of that, we didn’t have any social lives,” said Justin Douds, junior in advertising who helped work on the campaign.

Although the team was at a slight disadvantage because it was one of the smallest teams in the competition, Bonney Rega, advertising adviser and assistant professor, thought it did very well.

“The other schools have much more funding than the Iowa State team, and they had 35 to 40 students working on the project with the majority of them being veterans to the contest,” she said.

The team had to raise the money for production and printing while the advertising department donated around $1,500 to pay for transportation and lodging.

“We cannot thank the department enough for all their financial and moral support because without it none of this would be possible,” Rega said.

The students get to choose how many credits they want to receive for working on the project, anywhere from one to three. The students with three credits have to work a little harder than those with only one, Rega said.

However, Anne McCarthy, a senior in advertising and art and design, chose to work on the project receiving no credits.

“I worked last year for the same competition and I liked it so much I chose to participate one more time. This year we worked more in the computer labs and we worked a lot harder on the project with more teamwork,” McCarthy said.

The experience the students gained from working on this project is more than anyone could imagine.

“It gave us the opportunity to see what it is going to be like in the real world and prepare us when we graduate,” said Jessica Pierce, a senior in public relations.