Olivia Herrera ’21 wins top honor in national advertising contest

By Beth Hatcher

Olivia Herrera ’21 recently won top honors for her role in the American Advertising Federation’s (AAF) National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC), the nation’s premier college advertising competition that challenges students to create strategic advertising, media and marketing campaigns for corporate clients.

Herrera won “Best Presenter” in District 3 of the NSAC competition, which involved schools from South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. More than 3,000 students in 15 districts across the nation took part in the competition this year. Yearly, more than 150 universities and colleges take on the NSAC challenge, according to the AAF website.

Overall, the UNC Hussman team of 19 students placed third in the competition. The competition is the focus of the capstone course “MEJO 690: Advanced Advertising Campaign Planning,” taught by Associate Professor Joe Bob Hester.

“The whole competition, from start to finish, was one of the most satisfying, real-world applications of the advertising knowledge I’ve learned at UNC Hussman,” Herrera said.

This year’s NSAC challenge was to build a multi-touchpoint campaign that would increase brand love for the dating app Tinder among 18- and 19-year-olds in the United States. The competition took place virtually, with teams sending in 20-minute videos of their campaign pitches.

Previous NSAC competition clients have included Snapple, Pizza Hut, Coca-Cola and Adobe among others, Hester said.

Pictured above: The “MEJO 690: Advanced Advertising Campaign Planning” takes a fun zoom shot. The class works on the NSAC competition, which took place virtually this year, throughout the semester.

Herrera, along with Amy Smith ’21 and Alley Steele ’21 , presented the UNC Hussman pitch, which she said highlighted Tinder’s gamification aspects, through media objectives, strategies and a media plan — though competition rules kept her from going into specific details about the pitch.

Gamification is the application of typical elements of game playing, such as point scoring and competition, as a marketing technique to encourage product engagement.

For example, gamification on Tinder is seen in the app’s swiping mechanism. Users swipe each other’s pictures left and right, right being a like and left a dislike. When both users swipe right then they “match” and they can chat with each other.

Skills that matched Herrera to her presenter role included substantial theater arts experience. She double majors in dramatic art and currently serves as LAB! Theatre’s executive director.

The link between drama and advertising is storytelling, Herrera said.

“You have the opportunity to be really creative when telling a brand’s story,” Herrera said.

Hester praised Herrera’s presence and work ethnic and called her a valuable asset to the UNC Hussman NSAC team.

“She’s really smart, but she’s also got a real presence and knows how to work a room,” Hester said, noting those traits were important in presenting advertising campaigns.

“A good presenter also has to be able to think on their feet,” Hester said. “They have to know a little bit about the whole business.”

Herrera — who hopes to land a job in media buying or media planning after graduation — said she learned multitudes during the NSAC competition, not only about advertising principles but about the teamwork required for advertising work.

UNC Hussman team members serve multiple roles throughout the NSAC competition, such as research, creative, strategy development and presenting.

“The idea is to let everyone contribute to the area where they are most talented while also providing everyone experience across all aspects of the project,” Hester said. Students interested in taking part in the next UNC Hussman NSAC competition team should email Hester.

Applications for the team are typically due by the end of September and the team will start working on the project in October, even though the class doesn't begin until spring semester, Hester said.

Other members of this year’s UNC Hussman NSAC team were: Abbie Ashford ’21, Gaby Behailu ’21, Jamie DelGrosso  ’21, Summer Epps ’21, Isabel Hewgley ’21, Frances Hoggard ’21, Liz Hornick ’21, Eliza Krans ’21, Maddy Lips ’21, Beth Macon ’21, Raquel McLeod ’21, Savannah Perry  ’21, Caleb Petty ’21, Emma Ravenberg ’21, Sydney Seferyn ’21, Amy Smith ’21, Dante Spado ’21, Alley Steele ’21.