Author: edcom Team

Ten student teams from across Europe have been selected to compete in the second round of the 10^th annual Ad Venture Student Competition, organised by edcom (European Institute for Commercial Communications Education). More information about the top ten campaigns can be found here.

This year’s edition focused on a brief issued by Amnesty International, with the single objective to drive people to the iWelcome Community Platform which encourages people to take action against the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe. Following the announcement in September 2017, exactly 90 student teams – a record breaking number for this competition which has run for 10 years – submitted their campaigns in the hope to convince the jury of their creative ideas.

All campaigns have been judged by a panel of 60 jurors, including academics, industry professionals and client representatives who scored the campaigns based on research, creativity and creative media and strategy.

As a next step in the competition, the ten finalists’ campaigns will be examined by a new panel of six judges: two academics, two industry professionals and two client representatives. The jury will select the top three finalists, who will present their work during the edcom Member’s Meeting on 18 May 2018 in Vienna, Austria. They will have to justify why they should be the winners of the valuable experience of participating in the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2018.

The Ad Venture Student Competition was launched in 2008 and has been an invaluable opportunity for students in commercial communications to gain an understanding of what it is like to work in an agency and working for meaningful clients such as the European Commission, ESA, the European Women’s Lobby or Amnesty International. For any questions regarding the competition, please don’t hesitate to contact us at inspire@eaca.eu.

This year’s Ad Venture Student Competition is representing a great cause: welcoming and helping refugees. The client, Amnesty International, challenged the students with their brief. The purpose is to drive people to Amnesty’s iWelcome platform and encourage them to take action and help with whatever they can.

And the challenge was accepted! 107 student teams registered in the competition, from all across Europe and 90 teams submitted their campaign in the end. These great numbers were high enough to set the record for the most teams entering the competition since the Ad Venture Student Competition was launched.

Willing to help, Marcin Trzepla a strategic planner at DDB&tribal Warsaw, shared the story of how one of the most successful Amnesty International campaign was made (the movie “Look Beyond Borders”). The aim of his blog, was to inspire the teams of students that were working hard to create their own campaign.

Today, 23 March 2018, the First Round of Judging starts. The international jury, composed by 20 Academics, 20 Industry professionals and 20 Client jurors, will assess the campaigns based on the following criteria:

1. Research
2. Strategy
3. Creativity and Media

The finalists of this judging round will be announced on 12 April 2018.

After two other judging rounds, the big winners of the competition will be announced on 18 May 2018, during the edcom Meeting in Vienna. The winning team will be awarded with travel and tickets to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Stay tuned for updates about the progress and the stages of the competition!

Ad Venture is the first Pan-European competition which gives students the opportunity to experience what it is like to work in advertising by creating their own campaign in response to a brief from a real client.The student agencies work on an advertising campaign from October to March by incorporating everything they’ve learned in class and putting their skills to test.

And here they are! The winners of the edcom Thesis Competition 2017-2018!

After 3 rounds of judging, the jurors have decided that the following two entries stood out the most:

In the Bachelor category, Caitlin Brands, a student from Avans Hogeschool (the Netherlands), won with her paper aiming at closing the bridge between media agencies, advertisers and consumers. In the Master category, Patricia Oliveira from the Portuguese University of IADE impressed the jurors with her thesis on a communications device to control satisfaction with tourism and quality of life in urban cities.

In our blog post you can find a detailed description of what their research entails and why these theses were highly appreciated by the judges.

Both winners will be awarded with a cash prize of €400 and a €400 voucher for the participating institutes, to be used on edcom and EACA educational initiatives. The first round and second round finalists will receive a printed certificate to recognise their achievement.

The edcom Thesis Competition rewards the best Bachelor and Master theses on advertising or commercial communications among edcom member schools. edcom member schools have been very active and engaged in selecting their best students and submitting their thesis abstracts. This year, edcom has received 21 entries from 10 countries across Europe.

The next edition will be launched on 3 September 2018. For more information about the competition and future editions please visit our webpage. Also, don’t hesitate to contact us at inspire@eaca.eu, in case you have any other questions.