The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Ad Club celebrated its 100th anniversary on Dec. 4 at the Agency, located on the third floor of the Lincoln Children’s Museum. The event marked a century of the club’s standing and brought together alumni and current UNL students, with its official theme being “Black and White.”
The Ad Club’s mission is to get students excited about advertising and prepare them for success. It also focuses on developing students’ personal and professional skills while creating opportunities to network and unwind.
The anniversary aimed to fundraise, honor legacy and generate excitement.
Attendees were greeted with a warm, cheerful atmosphere upon arriving. Laughter and chatter filled the room, and networking began right away. An appetizer table offered a variety of foods to enjoy, including twice-baked potatoes and spring rolls.
After conversations subsided, the advertising and public relations student panel began. The speakers included Jodi Soptic, Bobby Coleman, Elizabeth Fischbach, Logan Berggren and Brianna Dahl, the Ad Club’s president. They first answered pre-written questions followed by questions asked by the audience.
Hot topics like artificial intelligence, new features at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications and the future of advertising were discussed.
“That's a big thing about our industry. There is so much changing all the time that we just have to be adaptable, and we have to try those new things and give them a shot,” Fischbach said.
The student panel was followed by the Advertising Legends panel, which featured Kelli Britten, senior marketing manager at the Arbor Day Foundation and CoJMC adjunct professor; Adam Kroft, founder and CEO of Redthread; Brent Schott, president and CEO of Swanson Russell; Christine Weeks, founder and CEO of Eleanor Creative; Lyn Wineman, founder and chief strategist at KidGlov; Sarah Wischhof, head of marketing at Union Bank & Trust; and Rich Bailey, co-founder of Bailey Lauerman.
The legends filled the large room with liveliness as they shared their experiences and offered advice to current Ad Club students. They joked back and forth with each other, bounced off each other's thoughts and enthusiastically answered questions.
“I learned early on that one of the most important traits you can have if you want to succeed in this profession is an intense curiosity about things in general, how things work, how people make decisions and how the world comes together,” Bailey said. “And in order to do that, you need to get out and look around.”
When the final panel concluded, attendees were welcomed to grab more food and continue networking.
Ad Club’s 100th anniversary highlighted its ongoing success and value as a program within the CoJMC.
“It’s really exciting to see this program still growing, still thriving, still connecting students to professionals,” Britten said.
AbbyLane Kloke, a junior advertising and public relations major and the Ad Club’s event and PR director, played a key role in planning the anniversary. She knew the event would be significant and began preparing alongside Dahl and Dean of the CoJMC Shari Veil, nine months in advance.
“This has been a long time coming, especially because we’re going to have a whole bunch of really high up people in the community (attend),” Kloke said.
Kloke described Ad Club’s overall theme of the year as past, present and future.
“It's focusing on the fact that Ad Club has helped grow some of the most successful people in the advertising business, particularly in Nebraska, but also all over the world,” Kloke said. “We are an environment of people who foster education and creativity. We want to keep going and we want to continue to be a big part of the lives of advertising students here at UNL.”
The 100th anniversary of Ad Club reiterated its mission to inspire, unite and connect Nebraska’s advertising community. All UNL students, regardless of major, are encouraged to check out Ad Club.
