Story by Larissa Wurm
The Drake Ad Club is bringing back an event from the early 2000’s to rejuvenate the organization.
The event, titled the Bulldog Awards, encourages students to submit pieces of work into different categories: print, business cards and stationery, webs ads/digital, radio/tv spots, social media strategies and a creative brief (or case study).
The actual event in April will be an award ceremony, and student work must be submitted by the end of February.
Seven awards will be given out. Modeled after the Westminster Dog show (a play on the ‘Bulldog’ Awards), there will be the “best in breed” awards, which will be the best in each category, and the “best in show,” which will be the best overall.
“We want to get the whole student body involved,” said Savana Dale, a senior advertising account management major and vice president of Ad Club. “So, we tried to create categories that would apply to a variety of majors.”
The Ad Club is getting judges from ad agencies in Des Moines to judge the competition. Each category will be judged by a professional who specializes in that specific category.
“After the event, you have the opportunity to talk to professionals in that field and network, but also get that face-to-face critique that you usually don’t get in these types of competitions,” Dale said.
The Ad Club meets every other Sunday evening in Meredith Hall to learn about what’s going in the advertising industry as well as offer its members real life experience.
“We do fliers and posters for organizations on campus,” Dale said. “We also get real-world experiences. For example, right now, we are working on a logo for a gluten-free bakery in the area.”
“The event provided a fun opportunity to get an outside professionals viewpoint on your creation skills,” said Dorothy Pisarski, a journalism professor and adviser for the organization. “We used to have little workshops for Photoshop or composing photos and such. Then, we were hit with this change in technology, and everyone dabbled in everything.”
Now, Pisarski said, they’ve caught up, and they’re bringing the event back so students can enhance their skills in designing, creating and producing work.
“It’s good for everyone on campus to enhance their sklls and get that ouside, professional opinion on their work,” Pisarski said.
Ad Club is also using this event to try attract more people to the club.
“We’ve been struggling for membership the last couple years and a loss of direction,” Dale said. “This event offers exposure and show why this organization would be worthwhile.”
Rules and submission forms will be posted to bulldogawards.wordpress.com so students can get more information.
