‘Mad fest’ is a success for ad students

The 50th annual American Advertising Federation Houston ADDY Awards recognized Jack J. Valenti School of Communication students, taught by Larry Kelley and Rosario Laudacina at UH with a total of seven gold and silver medals.

The school ranked eighth overall, ahead of 52 others.

Inspired by the show “Mad Men,” the Feb. 25 event was titled Madfest.

The National Student Advertising Competition team at UH won two gold and two silver medals for their work for JC Penney, Kelley said.

The gold medals were awarded to the overall mixed media campaign as well as the magazine category, and the silver medals went to the television and collateral categories. Keith Houk and his Television II class collaborated on the television campaign.

Senior advertising majors Isabelle Chabrier won a gold medal in the nontraditional advertising category while Joe McKinney won silver for the television category.

Jaime Alvizar and Matt Whiteley were also awarded silver Addys for the magazine category, Kelley said.

Gold and silver medalists will go onto the District 10 competition in Shreveport, Louisiana, to compete with 21 other schools from Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

If UH wins at District 10, in June they will move on to the Nationals Competition in Austin. At the Nationals Competition last year, UH took home a silver medal, Kelley said.

Kelley, advertising professor at the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication, has participated in the competition for four years.

Kelley is also the head of the advertising sequence.

Advertising majors interested in participating in next year’s competition can submit their projects for $50.

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