Akamai Advertising is the
HPU student chapter of the American Advertising Federation,
the oldest national advertising trade association. AAF headquarters
are in Washington, D.C. and the federation is known as the “Unifying
Voice for Advertising.” It represents 50,000 professionals,
about 200 ad clubs, and 215 college chapters with about 6,500
students. Its corporate members include 130 blue-chip companies,
agencies, and media corporations, comprising the nation’s
leading brands and corporations.
This year’s staff advisor for Akamai Advertising is College
of Communication instructor Katie Clarke. “The AAF runs
the National Student Advertising Competition every year,” Clarke
said, explaining that this year’s the contest is sponsored
by the Century Council, a nonprofit comprised of distilleries
and dedicated to eradicating underage drinking and drunk driving.
“
I think the students would agree that it has been a tremendous
undertaking, and hopefully equally rewarding and enriching,” Clarke
added.
The campaign team includes 27 club members and the students in
the ADPR capstone class. This year’s challenge was to create
a campaign to decrease binge-drinking among college students
ages 18 to 22.
“
Just like a real agency,” said Clarke. “We all contribute
to the campaign via different assignments and positions ranging
from research to creative concepting, publicity, graphic design,
public relations, campaign copy testing and evaluation, and pitching,” said
Clarke.
The district competition was held at Servco in Honolulu on April
25, as this issue went to press. Akamai Advertising faced the
University of Hawai‘i AAF chapter to decide which team
would represent Hawai‘i in the national competition. If
Akamai Advertising succeeds in grasping the state title again,
the team will travel all expenses paid to Washington, D.C. to
compete in the national competition in early June.
“
Regardless of the competition outcomes,” Clarke said. “I
think we've already won. My overall teaching goal is to empower
and inspire my students with the skills, tools, and imagination
to be better equipped to live their dream life on the last day
of class than they were on the first day. I think this “real
world” experience is a fantastic way to bring all of the
theory into practice.”
Clarke added, “It totally inspires me to see students take
ownership and put their hearts and souls into creating the best
campaign that they can. And it is especially rewarding to see
them work on a campaign for such a relevant and worthwhile cause.
“
I've coached national award-winning teams before, and I’ll
tell you, there is nothing like seeing your students succeed.”
