AdFed, the name ringing in every room of Milton Hall at New Mexico State University. As the members of this refurbished “club” walk the hallways of the old student union building (that has now been modernized in order to assist the Creative Media Institute, Photography and Journalism and Mass Communications students) they are hard at work as they scheme their way through a campaign for Snapple®.
AdFed, also known as The Advertising Club, is in full force as they prepare for an annual national student competition. This year, the district competition is in Salt Lake City, Utah, and AdFed is headed north in April. Some students will graduate this spring, and a few students will be left standing.
Kaylie Martinez, 21, is the newest sophomore member and is from Aztec, N.M. Martinez wanted a way out of her 6,578 population city and NMSU was the answer.
“To me NMSU is a great school,” she said. “It seems so big at first, but then you realize how much of a community it becomes after your freshman year.”
Martinez is currently working on a separate advertising campaign for The Farmworkers Center in El Paso.
“AdFed is a great way to for students to test the waters in advertising,” she said. “It’s great that we have someone there to guide us and help us, but also lets us take control. It feels more like a group of friends, and I love that.”
Martinez plans to graduate in either the fall of 2017 or the spring semester of 2018 with degrees in Journalism and Mass Communications, and Marketing.
Junior Skylar Wilson, 22, from Albuquerque, N.M. is a latecomer to the group. He joined after a semester of several members encouraging him to be in the club.
“I wish I would have joined sooner, because it is a great effort in practicing advertising,” he said. “You get a lot of different ideas from different people, and that will help your overall skills when you get a job in your career.”
Wilson is part of the creative team for the mini-ad-agency for Snapple and is cooperating with the team in order to produce a creative concept for the year-long campaign.
Rugby and CRU are not the only matches for MR. TOL-ES! Or also known as Brian Toles, 20, from Colorado. The next president of AdFed is this soon-to-be senior, Toles talks about the upcoming competition.
“It’s a unique opportunity and I am super pumped to be working with a real life company on their marketing,” he said. “I’m super pumped for the opportunity; what has already happened and what is to come. Sometimes it’s hard to conceptualize something until you get involved. There is so much that goes into an IMC [Integrated Marketing Communications] campaign.”
On being the next president to govern, Toles states, “I’m honored and excited for the opportunity to serve as the AdFed president in the coming year. The primary short term goal is to increase awareness and attendance at the meetings. Second, is to tackle raising funds so that we can partake in the national competition [2017]. Finally, I hope to work on at least eight separate campaigns for a variety of businesses and organizations.”
As the seniors of AdFed prepare to enter the biggest part of their college career, the National Student Advertising Competition, they also have to plan for post graduation.
Amanda Getchell, 22, from Rio Rancho, N.M., is currently seeking employment or traveling opportunities.
“AdFed has been a great experience for me, because it gave me hands-on experience in the adverting and marketing industry,” she said. “Being able to work with national and local clients has given me diverse experience that I plan on applying in my career.”
While AdFed continues to raise funds for their trip to Salt Lake City, they are furiously chipping away to what they hope will be a national win for NMSU. The department head, Dr. Hwiman Chung, has been with the university for over 10 years, but has been the department head since 2011.
He has successfully taken teams to this competition, but has yet to make it passed the district level. The AdFed group has their work cutout for them as they begin to meet twice a week at the beginning of March and everyday starting spring break. The club has worked on seven previous campaigns for different businesses in the greater Las Cruces and El Paso areas.
Wish them luck as they take on this big endeavor in defining their possible future.