Creating in a Crunch

By Emily Hung ’23, April 14, 2023

Teams of students compete in fast-paced advertising campaign competition.

Teams taking part in the Creative Crunch had 48 hours to put together an advertising campaign.

(Photo by Emily Hung '23)

Ithaca College’s chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF) hosted six teams of students in the Creative Crunch competition, which required them to create an advertising campaign in 48 hours. A panel of alumni, all former integrated marketing communications (IMC) majors, judged the contest.

For the competition, students worked from an eBay creative brief provided by Mark Addona, assistant professor of strategic communication, that asked them to come up with a print and social media campaign that would encourage Gen Z youth to buy and sell using eBay.

Alumni Micol Wajskol ’19, Kristi Licari ’08, and Don Hodgkinson ’18 served as judges.

This year’s winning campaign was “Your Stuff in Better Hands,” created by sophomore IMC majors Michelle Engler, Lilly Tollin, Isabella Mittelman, and Melelana Wheeler. The runner-up “Make It Yours” campaign was produced by IMC majors Ellie Benedict ’25, Emma Boisvert ’24, Sammi Klemm ’25, and Zoe Wegener ’25, along with business administration major Nicole Farias ’25, who called themselves Zense Media.

The winning campaign focused on inspiring Gen Z to sell second-hand items through eBay, with the idea of advertising for their campaign on billboards, digital poster boards, Instagram, and TikTok.

“We had to trust ourselves a lot through the process in order to trust each other’s ideas and what we were coming up with to work as efficiently as possible.”

Michelle Engler '25

“The biggest challenge that we had to learn from with such a time restrictive competition is that we really had to make decisions quickly and just move on,” Engler said. “So, we had to trust ourselves a lot through the process in order to trust each other’s ideas and what we were coming up with to work as efficiently as possible.”

Tollin said the competition was valuable for her as she hopes to build a future career in graphic design. “Being able to take part in competitions like this to get the experience and get the practice, without necessarily feeling like you’re all on your own to figure it out and practice it, is really nice,” Tollin said. “And to get feedback from industry professionals is excellent.”

The teams worked off of eBay creative brief to come up with a print and social media campaign that would encourage Gen Z youth to buy and sell using the site.

(Photo by Emily Hung '23)

Zense Media encouraged the use of eBay through thrifting, creating advertisements on Instagram reels and posts, and a pop-up thrift shop where small businesses could register as sellers on eBay for the chance to profit and advertise.

Hodgkinson, a strategist for the advertising agency Brooklyn Brothers, said both teams came up with impressive ideas. “I’ve worked in advertising and marketing for five years now, and I’m seeing a lot of presentations that are very similar to what I see at work,” he said. “That’s really inspiring. It’s always impressive to see what people can put together in so little time.”

“[This competition] had such an impact on me as a student, and the judges that gave me feedback had a big impact on my growth. I wanted to pass that along to other people [as a judge].”

Don Hodgkinson ’18

When Hodgkinson was a student, he participated in the Creative Crunch competition multiple times and now revels in getting to judge it. “I always enjoyed the competition because it gives students an opportunity to take all of the things that they learned and apply it to the real world and not just study things in isolation—to actually put those in practice,” he said. “It had such an impact on me as a student, and the judges that gave me feedback had a big impact on my growth. I wanted to pass that along to other people.”

Julia Colucci ’23, an IMC major and the president of Ithaca College’s AAF chapter, said the Creative Crunch competition provides a distinctive experience to students. “I am very impressed by the fact that the Park School allows you to get this type of hands-on experience,” Colucci said. “It provides students a way to boost their résumé and get ready for internships that they apply to come sophomore or junior year.”

“Overall, I thought the students did a great job working with the brief this spring,” Addona said. “Each group had a different approach, and all of the projects had definite strengths overall when targeting Gen Z. It was great to see all of the work put in, and the final presentations all were well thought out and prepared.”