NSAC AT&T

The AAF National Student Advertising Competition is an opportunity for students to create a fully integrated campaign for the yearly client based on their ask. For the 2024/2025 academic year, AT&T asked us to increase brand love and awareness amongst Gen Z (12-27 y/o) consumers. The JWU Ad Team took home 5th place in the nation out of 92 teams, and the first ever Lumie Research Award.

Project Strategies/Solutions:
This process was two semesters long, with a team of 15 people. We began in September by reading the client brief and truly getting to know it in our bones. This was followed by weeks of initial research that included a survey of 320 Gen Zers, 126 concept test results, one-on-one interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic research tracking phone notifications. We realized its smaller, everyday moments that make Gen Zs days. So, we reframed AT&T’s slogan, "Connecting Changes Everything", to fit into the right context and places according to Gen Z. We wanted to make the brand messaging something this generation wants to pay attention to.

We developed a highly integrated campaign with a custom media plan, a channel strategy tailored to Gen Z, an engagement strategy to match, and relevant creative executions, resulting in us winning 1st place at our competition in District 1, and 5th Place Nationally at the 2025 NSAC Finals. Programs the team utilized in this process were Adobe Creative Suite, Lumiere, MRI Simmons, and Qualtrics.

My role during all of this was to wear many hats. I had the pleasure of being the Lead Strategist and Editor, coordinating in-depth research during this process, writing and reviewing copy in our campaign book, and delegating tasks. Specifically, I also got to work on our Executive Summary, Slogan Research, Small Moments, and Media Strategy pages. I wanted to be there when people needed me and be able to help everyone on our Strategy & Research team feel like they were contributing to this campaign. I also assisted our Media Research team with budgeting different categories correctly based on where Gen Z lives online and off.

Since I had already worked on many areas of this campaign, I was naturally one of our presenters for the District, Semi-Final, and Final rounds of the competition. After our materials submission, we worked hard to write, edit, and memorize our presentation. Working alongside three other talented team members, Matthew Siggerud, Benjamin Ruehl, and Shannon Tapley, we presented our campaign to the judges. Overall, we wanted it to feel natural and get our campaign insight of “Small Moments” across.

I will always feel blessed that our little school made it all the way to the final round of this competition, and got the chance to compete amongst the Top 8 schools in the country. A very special thank you to my two advisors throughout this process, Oscar Chilabato and Mike Silvia. I am a stronger strategist and creative because of you both.

My Roles:
Lead Strategist
Lead Editor
Collaboration with media strategy team to assist in allocation of budget
NSAC District 1, Semi-Final, and Final Round Presenter