What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas — unless it’s the first-prize award for the National Student Advertising Competition. In that case, it’s coming to Eugene.

Upstream Advertising, the UO School of Journalism and Communication advertising team, earned first prize at the national competition held June 10-13 at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. The 26-member team earned the trip after recently placing first at the regional competition in Boise, Idaho.  

For the annual nationwide competition, the American Advertising Federation partners with a major corporate client to challenge colleges across the country to develop an integrated marketing campaign for a specific product, service or brand aimed at diverse target markets.

This year, each team was tasked with creating a campaign for Pizza Hut, with the goal to increase digital ordering by 70 percent. The UO team’s ad campaign utilized research that showed most people eat pizza in groups of two or more.

To watch a short interview with a few of the team members, click here. For a longer story on the team’s win, see “SOJC Ad Team brings home national title” on the school’s website.                 

The UO ad team last attended the national finals in 2010, placed second in the overall competition in 2002 and won first place in 1988, when the corporate client was Nestlé Foods Corporation. In 2009, the team did not place in the competition itself, but the client ended up using the team’s proposal anyway.

— By Nathaniel Brown, Public Affairs Communications intern