The beginning...

The premise for this course started in 2003 when some volunteers with AdInk, Northwest's student advertising club, participated in the American Advertising Federation's national collegiate advertising competition. The client that year was the Matrix automobile. Our students worked hard to compete among 13 regional university entries. I was proud that they placed 11th; afterall this was our first attempt, and we were up against schools that had up to 10 times as many students, and thousands of dollars in funding.

We tried the AAF's competition one more year, this time the effort was organized around a "special offering" course. The client was Florida tourism, and the class had a strong showing, placing 8th in the regional competition.

From these experiences, it was obvious that the competition was not for us. It was too expensive, and too rigid, not allowing us to weave in all of the curriculum items we'd wanted (like media planning, search engine optimization, etc.).

That's when the concept was turned into a full-fledged course and integrated into the curriculum for Advertising and IDM majors.

Fall 2010: Hope House

On Dec. 1, 2010, the Advanced Advertising Strategies class presented its integrated communication plan to the Hope House, a support service and shelter for victims of domestic violence.

News Release

Class and Pitch Photos

Plans Book
PlansBook3.1

Spring 2010: North Kansas City Hospital

NKCH Plans Book

Interested?

If you're interested in being considered as a client, please contact me by email: jplamer [at] nwmissouri.edu.

Before you do, there's one more thing to consider. I ask that you help us cover expenses related to the class, which run from $800 - $1,000. Donations are run through the university's foundation, and are tax deductible.

Now, still interested? Shoot me an email!

2003 & 2004

The first two years of this course were structured around participation in the AAF's National Student Advertising Competition, where we entered regional competitions for Toyota and Visit Florida.

Unfortunately, I don't have any photos or digital files from these campaigns.

Visual of Course Structure

This chart shows the process and progress of the 15-week course.

2009: KCP&L

2008: The Roasterie Coffee

Sorry, no photos of this presentation! The class pitched to the owner of the Roasterie, Danny O'Neil, at the Kansas City Ad Club's offices. As with most class projects, the class pitched a full, integrated campaign, complete with print and radio ads, web and email ads, direct mail and promotions. In addition, a web team offered search engine optimization and web usability recommendations.

See Keaton Guess' blog post on his experiences as a student in this class.

Some creative work from the class:

2007: Strawberry Hill Povitica Company

The Spring 2007 semester was the last semester this class was combined with a similar course, Advanced Web Publishing. The Web Publishing-focused course was intended for IDM New Media majors, but, due to its integrated nature, also attracted advertising students. Up to this point, these two courses each were offered every other Spring, alternating between Advanced Advertising Strategies and Advanced Web Publishing.

For Strawberry Hill Povitica, we offered web-based marketing strategies, search engine optimization solutions and usability recommendations.

2006: John Deere

NWMSU Newsletter
This newsletter highlights the fact that John Deere actually used some of the student work for a regional advertising campaign.

Student Survey Responses
The results of an online poll for the John Deere client class. This class was a "special offering" and we'd still not yet turned it into a "real" course.

Photos