SDSU student advertising team receives top honors at American Advertising Awards

South Dakota State University’s National Student Advertising Competition team received three awards at the 2024 American Advertising Awards hosted by the American Advertising Federation of South Dakota. The awards show was in Sioux Falls on Feb. 23. 

The American Advertising Awards is the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition. Its mission is to recognize and reward the creative spirit of excellence in the art of advertising. 

The local American Advertising Awards Student Division is the first of a three-tier competition. The next tiers include a district competition and then a national competition. 

The 11-person team from SDSU received two Gold ADDY awards and the Best of Show award for the student category. The Gold ADDY is the highest recognition for creative excellence. 

These 11 students were members of the SDSU National Student Advertising Competition team in 2023. The team previously won second place for its work with the client, Indeed, at the district competition in Fargo. 

Heather Solberg, associate professor of practice in the School of Communication and Journalism, submitted the team’s work with Indeed for recognition at this year’s American Advertising Awards competition. 

The SDSU National Student Advertising Competition team was given a client brief in the fall semester in Advertising Research and Planning with now-retired professor Roxanne Lucchesi. Students engaged in client and target audience research to prepare for their campaign. 

Following the fall semester, students then took Integrated Marketing Communication and Campaigns, co-instructed by Heather Solberg and Marisa Tenbrink. The team used this course to further develop the campaign details, including the audio and video ads, a media plan and pitch deck. 

This is the first time student work has been entered into this competition. 

Three 2023 team members — Ryan Warne, Zach Boyd and Dylan Nichols — attended the awards, unaware that they were going to receive such high honors. 

“I was entirely caught off guard,” said Warne, a 2023 advertising graduate with minors in marketing, professional writing and film studies. “We were not expecting to win the two gold awards, nor were we expecting to receive the Best of Show award for a student campaign. As far as any of us knew, we were only going to get recognized with a silver award and have our names read.”  

The students’ work will now move on to the second tier, district-level competition for consideration. 

“Our awards at the American Advertising Awards event not only indicate how proud we are of our Indeed campaign, but also serve as a testament to the profound positive impact of Heather Solberg, Roxanne Lucchesi, Brian Stemwedel and the entire School of Communication and Journalism staff who had a hand in educating us during our time at SDSU,” said Warne, a Pierre native. “We could not have done it without any student in our class nor any professor who played a part in our SDSU journey. To me, the National Student Advertising Competition capstone was the single most important aspect of the advertising major in preparing us for the professional world.”