Students attend American Advertising Federation conference in New York

By Antonio Miguel Escorzon •

For the first time, NSU students attended the Student Advertising Career Conference. The American Advertising Federation, a national non-profit organization that connects media companies and advertisers, hosted its annual conference in New York City this month.

“It is a high value for students to be part of that conference because major advertising agencies were sponsoring the event,” Kolos Schumy, associate professor in the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts and faculty adviser of the university’s American Advertising Federation chapter, said.

Raul Perez, senior Art + Design major; Victoria Ruiz, senior Art + Design major and graphic designer for The Current; Lila Taricco, junior Art + Design major and graphic designer for The Current; Alivia Klipp, junior Art + Design major; and Valerie Thornton, junior marketing major, were the five participating students who attended the conference on Nov. 12-15 alongside Schumy.

On Nov. 13, the students and Schumy were split up for the conference’s “Immersion Day.”

Ruiz, Taricco and Klipp attended panels by industries including the streaming service Peacock, Sony Music, and Publicis Health, the advertising service of Publicis Group.

“It was very insightful because they talked about how they advertise and how they plan their ads to get to the correct audience when it comes to the shows they’re promoting,” Ruiz said.

Perez, Thornton and Schumy saw presentations from PepsiCo Inc., an American beverage corporation; Ogilvy, an advertising, marketing and public relations agency; and WPP Media, a media business.

Thornton said attending the PepsiCo presentation was an amazing opportunity.

“There were four speakers talking about how they come up with these incredible ideas for these new projects and these new products to launch,” Thornton said. “I think that made me even clear about why I am studying marketing and why this is a really passionate topic for me.”

The next day, Paramount Advertising hosted its “Learning Lab” series, where students attended discussions on Google and Paramount Advertising.

For Klipp, the best part of the conference was the panels.

“I really enjoyed having those presentations because I learned a lot about their creative standpoint on advertising. I got to know the creative directors and how they got to where they are,” Klipp said. “I learned a lot about how you can’t just walk into advertising. You have to learn the strategies, how to reach target audiences and be able to work in teams to work through the problems that companies want.”

Perez said attending the Student Advertising Career Conference opened his eyes on what corporations expect to see from graphic designers.

“I study graphic design. I don’t really do marketing and advertisement,” Perez said. “It is still tangentially related to what I’m studying because a lot of graphic designers end up in that kind of career anyway because companies need a lot of creative people behind advertisements.”

Taricco said the conference allowed her to experience what it may be like in the professional world.

“So a lot of what we do is design, but I haven’t seen the advertising part of it yet, and I am minoring in marketing, so I’m starting to see that,” Taricco said. “The conference was a lot of perspective into what I need to be noticing, what I need to be thinking about and the kind of people I want to market towards.”