Springing into Strategy: Arrowhead Advertising Utilizes Research to Guide NSAC Campaign

Posted by Carly Nelson on

 By: Carly Nelson & Alex Truex 

This spring, after spending the previous semester conducting research, Arrowhead Advertising will begin creating activations and deliverables for the American Advertising Federation’s National Student Advertising Competition. 

The AAF is the nation’s oldest advertising trade association alongside the host of the NSAC, a competition where students create an integrated campaign for a real client – this year’s client being AT&T. Each year, student teams across the nation pitch their integrated campaign at the district level competitions, hoping to advance to regional level competitions and the national level competition based on the judge’s scores. 

During the 2024 fall semester, Arrowhead was divided into multiple teams, each playing a critical role in conducting research to inform the team’s integrated campaign. With an interview team, a survey team, a non-traditional team, and a secondary research team, Arrowhead was able to conduct an array of insightful and diverse research.     

Based on this research, Arrowhead will identify an overarching strategy for its campaign and bring it to life through multiple avenues during the semester.    

“It’s exciting to watch everyone collaborate during the spring semester,” said Max Mitchell, Arrowhead team captain. “I love seeing the ideas we researched and planned transpire into real-life activations and ideas.”    

During the spring, Arrowhead members are divided into six new teams: the events/public relations team, the digital/social team, the media team, the video team, the design team, and the plans book team. Each team guides their section of the campaign while collaborating and discussing with the other teams. Creating event ideas, designing graphics, allocating a campaign budget, and creating video and photo content are just some of the creative outputs Arrowhead is working towards for their campaign this spring.   

 This April, Arrowhead will compete at the AAF District Four competition in Orlando, FL. The team hopes to repeat the success of their 2023-2024 competition year – in which the team placed sixth nationally – by advancing all the way to the national level of competition.   

 “I’m excited to see all our hard work come together at the competition and be able to celebrate with everyone that weekend,” said Mitchell. “Hopefully Arrowhead will make it to the national competition in my hometown of Pittsburgh – that would be awesome!”