illiAAC

ADV 498: The Sandage Project is the capstone course in the advertising program at the University of Illinois. Each cohort is presented with a nonprofit client and the class forms micro-agencies, taking on agency roles to build and present a full advertising campaign to that client competitively alongside other student agencies. I served as the Creative Director and Art Director on a team of 5 students. Other roles were Account Director, Research Director, and Media Director. My responsibilities included all creative execution for the campaign, as well as branding and graphic design for our student agency, Super35.

Our client was IlliAAC, a professional organization for academic advisors. They asked for a full rebrand with the goal of drawing in more members from the higher education community and building engagement with their current members. We conducted research and interviewed members of the target audience, then presented the client with a brand audit, competitive analysis, key insight, and creative concept. The client gave us feedback and we refined our campaign, finalizing the strategy and creating creative executions.

At the end of 8 weeks, we presented our campaign, “Grow Your Network, Grow Your Knowledge,” to the client with a full complement of creative executions and a detailed media plan. The client loved our campaign and adopted our new branding and redesigned logo, choosing Super35 out of 6 student agencies.