KRISTEN ROBERTSON
Staff Writer
It’s a room filled with secrets. Four clusters of students sit huddled around the tables, voices pitched just loud enough for those around them to hear.
“It’s not just a class project,” senior Steve Smith said, explaining the secrecy clouding the room, “This is real.”
In Dr. Ginger Rosenkrans’ advertising class, each group is creating its own campaign to pitch to Santa Clarita Habitat for Humanity. And, one of the groups will have its campaign used by Habitat.
The scene is reminiscent of Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice.” Like “The Apprentice,” students are competing for the real prize of having their ads seen nationally – a big opportunity for a college student. Ever mindful of the competition, they were reluctant to share the details of their campaigns and emphasized repeatedly the importance of keeping their campaigns a secret from the other groups.
Across the board, the groups agreed that brainstorming their personal spin on the campaign was the hardest part, even though, as senior Ana Sanchez-Navarro said, “You could write a whole article on the difficulties alone.”
Each group spent hours coming up with its idea. While most of the groups had different methods in coming up with the final concept, they all agreed that it was a group process.
“It kind of built,” senior Luke Dunivan said.
Senior Holly Beatty agreed.
“Everyone kind of threw ideas out randomly,” Beatty said.
The next big challenge came when each group had to put their ideas together.
“The hardest part was creating cohesion throughout the project,” senior Matthew Han said.
Senior Kevin Longo agreed.
“Everyone has their own ideas,” Longo said. “It’s hard putting them together – everyone has to give a little.”
Each group managed to come together and form a working campaign.
Each group turned in its second rough draft of the campaign and received tips on how to pitch the campaign to the head honchos at Habitat for Humanity.
Rosenkrans, a much nicer, higher energy version of Donald Trump, stood in the front of the room and gave a quick lecture, highlighting the most important things students need to remember for their upcoming pitches.
“It’s like extemporaneous speaking,” Rosenkrans said. “Who would ever thought that Speech 180 would have come in handy?”
She went on to say, “Each group needs to think of a way to make their pitch memorable. What are you going to do? Be thinking.”
After class, Rosenkrans talked separately with each group about their campaigns, pitches, and any rough patches.
“The best part so far of creating this campaign,” senior Janna Lineback said, “was when we finally had our tagline. It was this moment of elation.” She went on to describe the “yelling and screaming” that went on when they finally had a cohesive direction.
Another group said the pitch would be the best part.
“You finally see that you’re working on more than just a class project,” senior Wade Stout said.
Every team appears excited about the pitch and confident that their project is the best.
“Our ideas are many, many yards ahead over everyone else’s – like a couple football yards,” senior Allison Nasser enthused.
The groups have until Nov. 29 to complete their pitches and present them to Habitat for Humanity. After that, their projects will be displayed for all to see and the secrecy surrounding each group’s tagline and ad campaign will dissipate.
11-17-2005