a day in the life of a student run ad. agency

I always seem to be talking about AHA and NVC, but I don’t think I have done a great job explaining these crazy acronyms.  

AHA stands for Allen Hall Advertising. AHA is not pronounced as A.H.A…it’s AHA! As in…Eureka!  We are a student run “ad” agency…or communications agency…or how about idea agency?  We have three accounts, UO Sustainability, Talk, and NVC.

NVC is an international MBA business plan competition hosted by the UO Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship.  Through a generous endowment from Tim Boyle/Columbia Sportswear, the AHA NVC account runs the branding and communications campaign.

This year…Kristin and I are co-managing the account – Kristin as the “external liaison,” serving as the Account Coordinator and myself as the “internal liaison,” serving as the Account Planner/Strategist.  It’s been quite the journey with a steep learning curve, plenty of trials, tribulations, sleepless nights, overflowing email inboxes and of course F.U.N. FUN. (=

So without further adieu, I thought it might be fun to show a little of a day in the life of AHA and NVC:

One of our first meetings back in Sept. – we began to brainstorm for our campaign by drawing.  Thinking abstractly of a business plan competition is actually quite helpful. 

If NVC was a mode of transit, what would it be?

Our team conducted about 30 in person interviews as well as data from an online survey.  This is during an interview Anna and I gave:

Team bonding is very important for good work:

Working on the press kit at 3 am is a must: 

Again, a solid team comprises people you would want to see outside of work!

Last week AHA brainstormed past failures and successes of AHA accounts…and how we can use these as learning experiences:

here’s one of the successes – Sustainability’s garbage monsters as a UO campus awareness piece:

Here’s another success – from last year’s NVC team – the NVC idea elevator which also served to raise awareness at UO:

ah, watching the NVC magic happen:

hhmm sometimes odd things turn up around the j. school; however, that’s what keeps things…interesting…and to be interesting we have to be interested, right?

Our team, as drawn by Evan:

pencils, frisbees and candy

This past week I went to Ignite Corvallis.

I think my favorite part of the event was the trade show.  For a more serious reason, I was able to talk with the OSU business school representatives, specifically about the entrepreneurship program.  As I am eating, sleeping and breathing NVC these days, anything related to new ventures, business schools and MBA entrepreuenrship programs catches my eye.

The single most important question I like to ask is: Why do MBA students choose your entrepreneurship program over other programs?  The answer from the OSU rep. was because it has a flexible schedule with night classes that allows students to fit the program into their schedules – entrepreneurs are also brought in at the end of the term to have the students pitch their ideas and receive feedback.  One interesting thing about OSU’s program is that there is a resident hall specifically for these students to live in order to create a community of like-minded individuals.

When talking to MBA students in the entrepreneurship program at U of O as well as international MBA students who compete in NVC, it seems that the single most important aspect is the experience.  Both seem to be more “full time” than “part time” and the community feel and educational aspect provided by the community of MBA students, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists seem to be repeated qualities of both U of O’s Entrepreneurship program as well as NVC.

ANYWAY, onto the more exciting part…the tradeshow…

Why is it that companies feel obligated to supply pencils (with erasers that smudge the lead), XXL t-shirts with the company logo, frisbees, candy in a bowl (usually the candy no one likes), text heavy pamphlets, and employees in khakis and matching colored polos??  Out of all the things one could provide to represent a company – why pencils and frisbees???  I just. don’t. get. it.

I did like this guys booth though – I have no real interest in his product, but I stuck around to look through the board because it was an interesting visual element:

30 Seconds And An Elevator

This past weekend, I attended the New Venture Championship up in Portland. The competition reminded me of my days involved in DECA minus the fact that this competition is real-life with entrepreneurs presenting brilliant ideas that could literally change the world. Neat stuff.

Allen Hall Advertising (AHA) has put countless hours of work into the NVC account and I have to say – it turned out quite well. As I have recently joined this account, I attended the competition in order to get a better feel for what I will be working with.

One of the categories of NVC is the Elevator Pitch competition – one member of each team is given and topic and has one minute to sell his/her idea to a panel of judges. In an effort to raise awareness of NVC here at the U of O, the AHA team constructed its own pseudo elevator and placed the contraption in the lobby of the business school, allowing students to pitch their “ideas” for business ventures. Here are the results: