A team of four Liberty University graduate students from the Department of Strategic & Personal Communication’s Ad Team earned the program’s first-ever victory at the Effie Collegiate Competition in May, taking with them the invaluable experience of interacting with industry professionals and showcasing their skills that can lead to successful careers in advertising and marketing.

What is the Effie Collegiate Competition?

The Effie Collegiate program provides students with the opportunity to research, ideate, and execute comprehensive marketing plans that address professional-level marketing challenges. Each year, Effie Worldwide partners with an established brand — this year being the digital financial services company Ally — to present future marketing leaders with a challenge. Student teams from across the United States compete to provide a solution to their “client’s” business challenge. The competition culminates with selected finalists pitching their ideas in-person to the brand and earning monetary prizes.

“I love seeing the skills students learn in our Strategic and Personal Communication programs transfer seamlessly to real-world success,” said department chair Dr. Marie Mallory. “These grad students worked hard and devoted significant time and energy to this competition. We are so proud of their accomplishments and how they represented Liberty University and this department.”

Each student on Liberty’s team represented a different major at the university — Natalie Olson (Master of Arts in Visual Communication Design), Bailey Teague (Master of Arts in Professional Communication), Abigail Hickman (Master of Business Administration), and Juliana Peterson (Master of Arts in Strategic Communication: Digital Communication). All four earned their undergraduate degrees from the Department of Strategic & Personal Communication.

This year marked the third time that a team from Liberty has competed in the Effie competition after the university sent a team last year and in 2021, when the students finished runner-up.

What students gain from the competition

“This competition is like a real-life simulation of what a future in advertising can look like,” Olson said. “It’s such a cool opportunity to work with a real client. It’s the real deal, and it takes the learning out of the classroom and into a situation that we will likely see in the industry.”

Olson added that throughout the experience in Detroit, the representatives of Ally were welcoming and eager to offer career advice. Following the team’s presentation at one of the company’s headquarters, the students received a tour of the facility.

All four students participated in the Ad Team during their undergraduate studies, competing in the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC), which Olson said helped them to set their expectations and have better chemistry in the collaborative nature of the work.

“Since we had already gained the experience of working with a real client brief and learned how to create a fully integrated marketing campaign in undergrad, we were already familiar with how to tackle the new challenge this semester, regardless of the fact that we had a shorter timeframe to build the campaign,” she said. “Our team was able to accomplish amazing things together, and it helped that we had already worked together in past classes.”