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Des Moines—Iowa State University students snared top honors Saturday in the AAF-Des Moines awards competition, winning “Best of Show” plus one Gold and three Silver prizes.

The Greenlee School’s Alyssa Gonzalez and Maddi Ott won the top student prize for their Burt’s Bees print campaign developed in “Advertising Creativity” class. Other entries included students in Advertising Principles and Computational Communication-Advertising classes, and Cardinal and Gold Agency.

“I’ve worked for more than 20 years in the advertising business and was very impressed with our entries this year,” said Michael Wigton, advertising instructor. “I felt the work Greenlee students did was on par with the professional work. It was hard to tell where the professional work ended and the student work began.

“I’d put Greenlee students’ work up against professionals any day! I’m so very proud of all their work and accomplishments.”

Alexander Maxwell, Austin Evans and Melissa Garrett won a Gold prize for their “Near Field” interactive poster for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The strategic thinking in the Gold Medal ‘Near Field Poster’ was first-rate,” said Jay Newell, associate professor, who helped design the Computational Communication course with Greenlee’s Sherry Berghefer and Computer Science’s Wallapak Tavanapong. “The digital creativity in creating an interactive poster was truly inspiring,” Newell added. “That the work was done in the brand-new Computational Communication course makes it even more special.”

To view a video about the LAS interactive map, click the photo below.

Greenlee’s Silver Medal winners include Carly Bro/Zach Van Dorn: “Nissan Print Campaign,” Rhiannon Michelson: “ISU Geology Club Logo” and Sarah Raymond/Anne Raymond: “Texting and Driving PSA”

Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School, complimented the students not only on their creative and marketing skills but also for their design and computer expertise in assembling advertisements about a wide range of topics. “This shows that our students can work with clientele in any business, especially ones that hope to reach out to publics using digital media as well as traditional media. The credit here not only goes to students but the professors and instructors that guide and advise them about industry standards.”

The mission of the AAF Student Division competition is to recognize and rewardcreative excellence in the art of advertising. This is the first of a three-tier competition. At the second tier, local student winners compete against winners in 15 districts. Those winners go on to the nationals.

The American Advertising Awards, formerly the ADDYs, is the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition, attracting over 40,000 entries every year in local AAF Club competitions.

The mission of the American Advertising Awards competition is to recognize and reward the creative spirit of excellence in the art of advertising.

This year a record number of AAA entries, 39, were included in the student category. Entries were judged by advertising professionals. Only 8 awards were given out of those entries—5 for Greenlee (2 gold/3 silver); 3 for Drake (1 gold/2 silver).

The event was attended by advertising professionals in and around central Iowa.