24 hours. 1 competition. Experience to last a lifetime.
By Beth Hatcher
One strategic communications competition, 24 hours and over 70 enterprising students adds up to a weekend of resume-building experience benefiting students and local businesses alike.
Must be time for the Crash Campaign!
The weekend of Feb. 26 - 28, 2021, saw the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media’s annual student-led Crash Campaign competition turn virtual as 16 teams of 74 students combined marketing, advertising, public relations and design skills to produce campaigns for local businesses — under time pressures that mirror what they will encounter in their careers.
This year’s winning team — Emily Holler ’21, Lilly Sessions ’21, Julia Dudick ’21, Kate Chedraoui ’23, Jordan Barish ’23 — created a campaign for Sani, a South Asian-inspired fashion brand, that enhanced and updated the company’s product packaging and created ideas for customers’ post-purchase interactions with the brand. The team took home $1,000 for their efforts, which will be split evenly among the team members.
Natalie Rinehard ’21, who served as president of Crash Campaign’s planning committee and is a veteran of three earlier Crash Campaigns, noted the competition’s skill-building potential.
“Regardless of their experience level at the beginning of the weekend, [participants] leave with new, valuable skills for their resume: working with a group of people they just met, using Slack, pitching a campaign and working under an extreme time constraint, just to name a few,” Rinehard said.
Student teams received the client’s brief (outlining the client’s needs and deliverables) Friday at 5:30 p.m. and turned in their pitch decks (assets and materials addressing these needs) at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. On Sunday, the teams gave 7-minute presentations to their clients followed by five minutes of questions by an expert panel of judges.
“A comfortable team using each member’s skillset that does their research and puts forward fresh ideas passionately is a winning recipe,” said Nick Valego ’21, vice president of public relations for the Crash Campaign planning committee.
In their winning presentation for Sani, Agency Fifteen — as they named themselves — created a campaign that included consistent branding, experiential packaging, versatile gifting and strategic partnerships.
“The biggest challenge we faced — in my opinion — was finding a common thread among the many tasks our client presented us with,” Holler said. “We had to tackle rebranding, user experience and a full-fledged campaign within 24 hours, all while developing a cohesive pitch. Once we found that common thread everything sort of fell together.”
Holler, currently in Teaching Assistant Professor Gary Kayye’s “MEJO 577: The Branding of Me” class, noted how the class had made her understand the power of storytelling in the advertising world.
Sani co-founder Niki Shamdasani ’15 was impressed with the students’ ability to tell her brand’s story.
“I wanted Sani to be a Crash client because it’s been a year full of change — as it’s been for the students too — for us as a previously formalwear-focused company, and I wanted a fresh perspective on how we tie it all together through packaging,” Shamdasani said. “The teams definitely delivered on that. I hope the students gained hands-on experience, comfort with major time crunches for deliverables and a look into a business owner’s mindset in the process.”
The competition’s other clients included:
• Camellia Tea Forest Gardens, a tea farm.
• Carolina Adapts Toys for Children (CATCH), a UNC student-run nonprofit that adapts toys for children with disabilities.
• Hourglass Kids, a 6-piece reggae/psychedelic rock band.
While Agency Fifteen was the overall winner, winning teams were also named for each of the three other clients.
“The winning teams were all smart, strategic and remarkably creative. They’d done their homework and thought their prospective client’s problem through. They simplified the complex for both the client and their consumer through innovative and engaging solutions,” said UNC Hussman Adjunct Instructor Louis Killeffer, who served as a competition judge. “And the winners worked very well as a team; exuding the confidence and poise that only a group of people who enjoy each other and their craft can display.”
The competition’s judges included:
• Allen Bosworth ’81, president and CEO EP+Co.
• Michelle Brisson ’17, a member of Kantar’s U.S. MONITOR team.
• CJ Franzitta, a freelance marketing strategist, previously with Ogilvy NY, R/GA and McKinney.
• Jim Giekie, a partner in One Better Ventures
• Annabelle Holman ’20, an affiliate marketing coordinator at 2U.
• Anna Ross ’16, an account manager with the consulting division at Kantar.
Here’s a rundown of the winning teams for each client.
Camellia Forest Tea Gardens Winner
Team 4: Brina Tasker ’22, Emily Ruezinsky ’21, Sophie Hanafin ’22, John Duffy ’24, Nicole Zack ’24.
The tea farm needed recommendations for social media outreach, logo ideas and website improvement ideas.
“[This team] really dialed up the excitement, the curiosity. I also liked the insight that this is not just about passive consumption — sitting back and drinking tea — this is about active doing,” Franzitta said.
Carolina Adapts Toys for Children (CATCH) Winner
Team 5: Sarah Bradley ’22, Gabby Derosier ’21, John Ratkowiak ’23, Diana Ortiz Saldana ’23, Nicole Schroder ’23
The UNC nonprofit, which adapts toys for children with varying physical and cognitive disabilities, needed a new website and letterhead.
“I thought you guys did a great job. There is a lot to like — you took the brief and you delivered,” said Bosworth, who praised the team’s messaging and logo design.
The Hourglass Kids Winner
Team 12: Carson Dobrowski ’22, Cody Johnson ’21, Hannah Towey ’21, Emma-Blake Byrum ’22, Nuria Shin ’23, John (Rhett) Parham ’24
The band needed work on its website and logo, as well as recommendations for increasing Spotify and social media traffic.
“This team did a really nice job of being consistent and paying attention to the client’s details,” said Brisson, who noted the team’s incorporation of the client’s existing messaging of eternal youth through every aspect of their campaign, which included creative choices like a TikTok challenge.
Two teams also took home honorable mentions for their work during the competition.
Team 2: Holly Atkinson ’22, Macon Porterfield ’24, Max Poteat ’24
Client: Camellia Forest Tea Gardens
Team 11: Drew Campbell ’22, Ryan Combs ’22, Samantha Carey ’21, Zach Johnston ’22, Valeria Martinez ’22
Client: The Hourglass Kids
Associate Professor Lois Boynton, the campaign’s faculty adviser, praised students — both competitors and planners — for tackling the Crash Campaign virtually this year.
“Natalie Rinehard and her team were not deterred. They really wanted to make Crash Campaign possible, despite the limitations that the pandemic created. They took the extra couple of months to create an online experience like none other,” Boynton said. “I’m always in awe of what the Crash-ers do – this year had its differences, but I remain awed and proud of how they brought it all together for another fabulous competition.”