Opportunities of a Lifetime

             In the last week, I have had the opportunity to see the man that discovered the Titanic speak, Bill Clinton and got to help students see what they are passionate about in their major. As this semester is winding down, I’m amazed at how busy I was and how I even made it out alive.

            Seeing Dr. Robert Ballard speak was an honor. As someone who used to want to be a marine biologist (that worked out huh?), I was intrigued about his story and how he got involved into what he loved doing. He spoke to us briefly about the Titanic but also his other discoveries, which included ancient Mariner ships, The Yorktown and The Bismark. The thing I got most from his talk was to follow your dreams. He set out to find the Titanic and he did, along with so much more

            President Clinton was the speaker on Tuesday night. He spoke in front of about 5,000 people from Amarillo and Canyon here in our First United Bank Center. For a small school like WT, having a former president come is incredible. Actually, this was the second time this has happened in 102 years. Clinton’s speech was about a lot of subjects including the memorial of flight United 93, healthy food in schools and farming resources.

            My favorite part of the night was towards the end of his speech.  Clinton touched on how everybody is 99.5% water. We are all 99.5% the same, the only thing that differentiates us is our skin color, hair, eyes, personality, etc.  He wanted to highlight the fact that we all have the opportunity to make a difference and at one point he referenced the younger crowd saying that we are the ones that have the most influence on society. We hear this a lot from parents, teachers and friends but coming from such a loved leader in our country, it meant a lot.  Having both of these speakers at WT was such a great opportunity that I am glad I was able to take.

            This week, our Buffalo Advertising team was invited to go to the Midland Advertising federation to present. We had previously presented to the Amarillo Advertising Federation, which was amazing. Going to the Midland performance, we were all tired and it was a three and a half hour drive for our 20 minute presentation. I don’t think we all realized though, how humbling this trip would be. We arrived and were graciously greeted by the head of their federation. The room was set up nice and they wanted to accommodate to whatever we needed. We gave our presentation over lunch to a room of about 50 people. At the end, we could tell some of the students from Midland College or the high school had never seen anything like that. One boy asked “Why didn’t you win first?” and another question was “Are you all employed?” Our answer: No, but we would like to be! We got a few laughs for that one.

            They all commended us on our presentation and we got asked a few questions by some of the older members in the crowd which we have been so nicely trained to answer by our advisors. The real joy came when we were able to just kind of take our jackets off and talk with these students. They were hesitant to come up to us but once they did we realized that they looked up to us. There were four girls and one guy who were talking to us. Most of these students wanted to pursue a career in Mass Communications. They had questions and comments about our futures and us and mentioned how passionate we all seemed about what we did: and we are just that, passionate.  To all of us, this was very humbling. During the semester, things are moving so fast that we don’t realize the opportunity that we were presented with to be able to work on this campaign and to be able to present. To me, that has been the biggest honor. Presenting to people like the AAF and Midland makes all the hard work; tears and late nights come together for something bigger than just the presentation. They say you don’t realize how good everything is until it’s gone. I must say, with the Midland Advertising performance being our last one until we find out about nationals, it’s bittersweet. If you asked me if I would go and do this semester over again, I ‘d say yes. It was all worth it.

Pocket Full of Sunshine

           It's hard to put into words how great this last week has been but also how much I didn't want it to end. We set off on Wednesday morning at 4:00 am to Shreveport. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning, barely being able to sleep, because I was so excited. It had finally hit me: A year of hard work was about to come into action at the 2012 NSAC 10the District Competition.
         When we arrived in Shreveport, all of us were exhausted but so excited to be there. We had orientation where we got our first look at other teams. I think that is when it all hit us that we were about to compete against some of the biggest schools in our district. To name a few: Texas State, TCU, OU, OSU, Texas Tech, UCO, Texas A&M and many other schools. I know the jitters of being there for the first time was a lot for all of us. That night, we had watched the first three competitors go, two of which were so-so and one which was really good. This kind of put into perspective that no matter how hard we worked, other schools probably had worked that hard as well. The presentation team spent the rest of that evening practicing our lines and our blocking.
        The next morning came way to soon. Oddly enough, I was confident and just a tad nervous. We got ready, all got in our suits and made our way to the practice room. Our advisers were there the whole way, still tweaking little things, the morning of the presentation. As we made our way over to the convention center, I was so excited.
        Our set up time was 9:50 am leaving us 30 min to set up before we had to present. Needless to say, we got everything set up quick and at that time it all became real. There we were, standing on stage, about to present our campaign to judges and other students. The doors opened and people quickly filed in. This is when it really hit. I looked out to see my mom, a few other parents, our teachers and classmates, and a few local AAF supporters and then a whole bunch of people from other schools. The next 20 minutes flew by. We delivered our pitch confidently, hardly any mess ups (which never happens with us), and smiled the whole time we did it. I think at that moment, I realized that I had made the right choice in my career path. That presentation made our whole almost year long of work, come together and made it all rewarding. We had a 10 minute Q&A with the judges which seemed to fly by as well.
      We played the waiting game the rest of the afternoon. At the awards banquet that night, they announced the special judges awards and then it was time to hear our fate. As they announced Texas State as the 3rd place winner, we all cringed. Texas State was a good competitor and we had a feeling we might be top two, hoping for first since it was flawless. When second place was called, and West Texas came out of judges mouth, we went up for our trophies. It was disappointing, there were some tears, but there was also a great sense of pride. We were sandwiched in between two of the biggest schools in the state of Texas. Texas A&M went on to win first and we were eagerly waiting to see their performance the next morning since we had missed it.
      The next morning, we saw the judges score sheet and the comments made. Our presentation was 1 point under the winning teams and our plans book was about 7. We had a ton of great comments from the judges and one even wrote, "Good Luck at Nationals" hoping we would have won. Overall, the learning experience was amazing. NSAC has taught me more than any other class has probably taught me. I was talking to a teammate last night and he said "I miss it already" and I had to agree. The experiences we had, and the way we presented all amount to so much. It's hard to not feel sad and happy at the same time. Something so big in our lives ended but we all gained so much from it. I am very blessed to have been a part of something so great. I hope to keep this legacy up for Buffalo Advertising and keep the name going as one of the top schools in the district. We still have a chance to make wildcard for nationals. Fingers Crossed!

     
       

  

NSA....Who?

Background Analysis : NSAC

1.     This blog will advance NSAC’s communication efforts by getting the word out that West Texas A&M actually has a competitive advertising team.

2.     The challenges with this blog would be the grace period in between the actual campaign and the research.

3.     The primary for this blog is to gain awareness around the Mass Communication department and the rest of West Texas A&M for the NSAC team.

4.     Our primary audience is students in college and teachers.

5.     The ideas for this blog would include weekly blogs from certain members of the team. It would also include an instructor’s point of view and update every few weeks along with some of the progress and struggles the team is having.

6.     To measure the blogs success we could see how many viewers it is having. Another way to measure the success would be to see how many people interact with the blog via commenting or sharing/retweeting

4/10/12

A year ago, if you had asked me what NSAC was, I would have looked at you with a blank stare. Now when you ask me, a sense of pride comes over me and I will tell you just about every detail of my life for the past year.

NSAC is known as the National Student Advertising Competition. Schools all over the country get one client. They research this client, make up a multi-platform campaign and present it in front of judges at the end of the semester.

West Texas A  & M has had a NSAC program for a number of years now. The last three years have really been break out years for the program. Last year, the client was JCPenny. They ended up getting runner up in the competition and a prize for best promotion. Since the team did so well last year, this years team has had a lot of weight on our shoulders.

Our client this year was Nissan. Most of the people on the team have been working in research since fall semester. We have worked hours and hours on end. From staying up all night working on plans book, to working every free moment on memorizing lines, we have come such a long way.

Now that we are almost at presentation time, I look back to where a lot of us were a year ago. I, myself, was a beginner Ad/PR student in the Advertising Principles class. The presentation team came in to present to our class, and right after that, I knew this is where I had wanted to be.

In two days, my goal is a bout to come true. The amount of pride I have for this program, I can’t even put into words. Of course, we wouldn’t be anywhere without our advisors and all the help they have provided us as students.  I know I don’t just speak for myself when I say, the NSAC team this year is proud of all that has been accomplished.