The Future of Advertising

April 29th, 2008 at 07:49am Cindy Harris

Last week, I had the pleasure of being a judge for the District 6 round of the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) put on each year by the American Advertising Federation. The event was held W-F, April 23-25, in Detroit and is the culmination of months of work by 17 student teams across Illinois, Indiana and Michigan who developed an advertising campaign for this year’s corporate sponsor, AOL.

Literally hundreds of students worked for months on these plans and the corresponding presentations. The two District 6 first-place winners - Columbia College in Chicago and Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. - will go on to the national competition in Atlanta in June.

What struck me was the unabashed enthusiasm these students have for what they were doing. They were totally invested in this project personally and professionally. While some of them may have had better plans, more creative ideas or slicker presentations, I think any one of them would be an asset to any agency or corporation.

We hear a lot about how the younger generation is lazier than the one that came before it and has a sense of entitlement to the benefits of hard work without ever having to do the hard work…but that wasn’t what I saw in Detroit.

In fact, I think the competition reminded us judges that we need to work harder and keep current in our industry…and that we need to keep a look out over our shoulder because the next generation of creative, innovative and hard-charging professionals is right behind us.

Entry Filed under: Ad industry news