Balance the Buzz Competition

Jennifer A

October 23, 2011 - 8:15 PM

I have been asked by a professor of mine to participate in a campaign against binge drinking. We have been assembled as a senior advertising team executing a national campaign at the university level. To say that I am excited to be working on this would be an understatement.

For any of you who have been on the University of Oregon's campus in the past year may have seen beginning parts of this campaign. To promote abstaining from alcohol to college kids would be a futile effort. No matter how many statistics a 19-year-old boy is bombarded with it will unlikely change his drinking habits. So instead UO came up with a better idea. It is a drink responsibly campaign. Basically, we all reach a point at a party when everything is going great but we know if we keep drinking at that rate the night could go really south. Out of that came "Stay in the game, balance the buzz."

There are many parts to making an advertising campaign work. It takes a wide array of people with as many talents and skill sets to make it happen. You need writers, creative directors, media planners, account executives and many more. (This is probably beginning to sound a little like Mad Men.) I have been asked to be a media planner for the team. (The ‘TV' guy with the glasses in Mad Men.) My counterpart and me are in charge of strategically buying media spots and placing advertisements in the best locations for the most reach to our target audience.

I am apart of an extremely competent and talented team who is putting this large project on. It is challenging but a worthy cause. Stay tuned for more details.