The American Advertising Federation has selected two advertising and public relations students — Miles Ukaoma of Overland Park, Kansas, and Maritza Hayes of O’Fallon, Missouri — for its Most Promising Minority Student Program. The two will represent the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in New York City Feb. 1-4, 2015. A panel of industry judges selected 50 top-tier multicultural students from across the nation to participate in the upcoming MPMS program.
Hayes and Ukaoma will be featured in Advertising Age, USA Today and the Most Promising Minority Student program book. Additionally, their resumes will be included in the 2015 Most Promising resume database that will be available to human resources and media professionals across the nation.
AAF National will give a nominator award to University of Nebraska–Lincoln advertising and public relations professor Sriyani Tidball who worked with Hayes and Ukaoma on their applications.
The MPMS Program is part of AAF’s initiative to promote diversity and inclusion within the industry. Each year, students from AAF’s 200 college chapters apply for the program, and a group of advertising professionals convene to select a new class of Most Promising students. Selected students participate in a four-day industry immersion program that includes professional development workshops, agency visits and a recruiter’s expo. Most Promising students represent the top of their class and have passionately demonstrated their future success in this industry through internships, leadership activities, community service, innovation and creativity.
“We selected from a pool of some of the most talented and diverse students I’ve come across,” said Christena J. Pyle, Diversity & Inclusion Supervisor with Omnicom Group and 2015 MPMS Judge. “When you start here, with this caliber of talent, what you end up with is a class of students that could very well change our industry. 2015 is not even ready!”
Creating an inclusive advertising industry beginning at the student level has been a priority of the AAF for nearly two decades. AAF offers a myriad of programming that promotes and advances multiculturalism within the advertising industry.
This year’s judging panel included representation from Carmichael Lynch, The CDM Group, Deutsch, Leo Burnett, Mary Kay, McCann Worldwide, Omnicom Group and Team Ignition Pancultural Marketing.
For more information on the Most Promising Multicultural Students Program, please visit the AAF website or contact Kai Jones at kjones@aaf.org.
About the American Advertising Federation
The American Advertising Federation (AAF), the nation’s oldest national advertising trade association, and the only association representing all facets of the advertising industry, is headquartered in Washington, DC, and acts as the “Unifying Voice for Advertising.” The AAF’s membership is comprised of nearly 100 blue chip corporate members comprising the nation’s leading advertisers, advertising agencies, and media companies; a national network of nearly 200 local clubs representing 40,000 advertising professionals; and more than 200 AAF college chapters with over 5,000 student members. The AAF operates a host of programs and initiatives including the Advertising Hall of Fame, the American Advertising Awards, the National Student Advertising Competition, the Mosaic Center on Multiculturalism, and summer Ad Camps for high school students. For more information on the full range of AAF programming, visit www.aaf.org.
