A team of 10 Samford University communication and media students earned a Gold Addy Award at the 63rd annual American Advertising Awards, hosted by the Birmingham chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF Birmingham) Feb. 26. Kyle Bowman, Hope Dawson, Jenna Goethel, Meg Herndon, Chad Jordan, Taylor Korte, Hannah Pellicer, Olivia Stein, Bennett Strange and Zach Zavada earned the honor in the Integrated Advertising Campaign for Consumers category for their work with Firehouse Ministries homeless shelter in Birmingham, Alabama.
Under the supervision of professor Dan Haun, the students created a complete ad campaign for the Stop, Drop and Run 5k Virtual Run event in December. The project helped raise $8,000 to support Firehouse Ministries programs, which include emergency services, shelter, housing, food and clothing. The students designed face masks, shirts, bibs, hats, posters, videos, a brand identity system, social media posts and two websites for the virtual run.
Haun said professionals and students submitted more than 350 pieces of work for this year’s competition. The entries were judged in mid-February by professionals from Austin, Chicago and New York. In addition to the Gold Addy Award, judges honored Samford School of the Arts students with an additional seven Addy awards for a variety of other projects.