UNR’s winning team made AOL’s Running Man icon large and in charge. In 15-second TV spots, he approached a city, built anticipation for a new social networking system—AIM Social Network.
“They made the little yellow guy really big,” says Bob Felten, advertising assistant professor and one of three coaches to the 29-member team of marketing, advertising, PR, and broadcast students. “The campaign recognized the company’s size and scope using the symbol as a Goliath, large and influential.”
That strategy won the team a first-place trophy in South San Francisco on April 18, along with a “Best Media Plan” award and “Best Presenter” for journalism senior Stacie Eliopulos. Eliopulos’ competition was 30 polished presenters from all teams.
The UNR team’s agency, Battle Born Communications, created a marketing communication plan for AOL’s eight products, including AIM, and was praised for its savvy strategy and winning creative executions to draw 18-24 year olds into a new online social networking product created by the team.
Judge Ryan Berman, co-founder and chief creative director of Fishtank Brand Advertising in San Diego, lauded the students for their ability to creatively think through the problem.
“Keep thinking,” he advised students after the awards ceremony. Felten recounted Berman’s advice as evidence that the Reynolds School of Journalism is fulfilling its mission to instill students with critical thinking abilities.
“That’s a pretty direct connection to what we try to accomplish in this building,” Felten said on Monday morning, after receiving the final scores via e-mail. The UNR team’s scores for both their book of advertising strategy and for their presentation were the highest, beating the University of California, Berkeley; California State University, Fresno; California State University, Chico; San Jose State University; Hawai’i Pacific University and University of San Francisco.
The UNR students are advised by Judy Strauss (marketing), Bourne Morris and Felten (advertising and public relations).
Felten said he spent the moments before the competition circulating among students from other schools, all of them smart, committed and professional. Before the event, he praised students for their commitment and the work they’d done.
“When you see our students’ commitment and you see how smart they are, and you compare them to other smart commitment students and see how strong our students really are, you can’t help but be moved,” Felten said. “You work with these students, many of them since their sophomore year, and see them move from being students to accomplished professionals—the level required by this competition.”

Regional National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) competitions are held each spring in 15 districts throughout the U.S. The winning team in each district and one wild card team then advances to compete on the national level at the AAF National Conference in Atlanta in June. The UNR team has won in the district five times since entering this competition in 2000, and won first in the nation in 2003.
Team members treat the competition class as a nearly full-time semester-long job. Many worked on the project for 100s of hours, spending spring break at the journalism school, working all night to produce the award-winning book that outlines the team’s strategies.
“You see them doing things they didn’t think they could do,” Felten said. “It’s amazing. There’s not enough money in the world to buy what we instructors get out of coaching these students.”

Read Guia Del Prado's "Journalism, business students branch out and flourish" at UNR's Web site.