By Lindsay Johnson
J alumni News staff
Hard work and long hours earned much more than a grade for Verde Communications, a team of nine University of Nebraska-Lincoln advertising students.
All that effort garnered a Nebraska ADDY for the team, part of the advertising campaigns class. The award came for work on a campaign for the Downtown Lincoln Association. Presented in Omaha in February, the award was the first citation of excellence from the American Advertising Federation given to any individual or group of UNL students.
The client, Downtown Lincoln Association has one goal: to promote downtown businesses. DLA believes a strong downtown means a strong community. The association wanted to change the image of the downtown area, creating an increase in awareness, brand image, traffic and the average length of stay per visit to the area.
Verde Communications also made positioning the downtown as an entertainment venue a top priority. The entertainment theme soon became the premise for the award-winning creative work and also prompted the tagline, “Do it downtown. Lincoln.” The team used an integrated media mix of print, out-of-home and radio advertising to solidify downtown Lincoln’s brand image and increase awareness.
Stacy James was the class instructor and facilitator. She has been teaching in the journalism college since 1988 and has been teaching this capstone advertising class since the fall semester of 2000. She said the class was valuable to the students as well as to the college and university.
James said both the DLA and Verde Communications’ campaign were successful. “I was dazzled by the quality of the client. DLA had good, current, well organized research and data,” she said.
“I think the quality of the product (campaign) is influenced by the quality of the client,” James added. “Good work comes from a good client. You can’t create a good campaign without a good client.”
Polly McMullen, president of the Downtown Lincoln Association, was “delighted when Stacy James approached us to be their client.” McMullen adds, “We had heard about the college’s reputation from other participants, and what a good experience it was.”
McMullen said the students’ work exceeded DLA’s expectations. “We loved working with the students, and we were impressed by the caliber and quality of their ideas and commitment brought to the project.”
The students spent countless hours learning about the client and creating the campaign, and the work paid off when the DLA board of directors adopted the full campaign and budgeted money for it. It will kick off in August and run for 18 months, McMullen said.
The DLA has hired a member of Verde Communications to assist in the launch of the campaign. “It is a true partnership,” McMullen said.
The Nebraska ADDYs Awards is the first of a three-tiered national competition conducted annually by the American Advertising Federation and is the largest and most representative competition for creative excellence in the country.