A team representing Humber College has won the Advertising Standards Council‘s (ASC) Student PSA Creative Competition – a two-month project that saw students from across Canada testing their ideas and skills in order to tell Canadians that truth in advertising matters.
The winning idea showed adds being pulled from radio, TV and print for violating various ASC policies on truth in advertising. In their place appear amusing placeholders such as pleasant music or cute cat videos.
The contest, which ran from Jan. 7 to March 11, yielded 43 concepts for judges to consider.
The judging panel included:
• Dom Caruso, President & Chief Operating Officer, Leo Burnett Canada
• Patrick Dickinson, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Hudson’s Bay Company
• Nicolas Faucher, Vice President and Publisher, Métro Montréal, TC Media
• Marie-Josée Lamothe (formerly of L’Oreal Canada)
• Raymonde Lavoie, Présidente, DesArts Communication Inc.
• Nancy Marcus, Corporate Vice President, Marketing, Kruger Products L.P.
• Tony Miller, Executive Creative Director, Anderson DDB Health & Lifestyle
• Jani Yates (Convener of Judging), President, Institute of Communication Agencies
“Truth and accuracy are essential to the advertising industry,” says Miller. “The judges were impressed by the many approaches students took in communicating the importance of truth in advertising to Canadians. We see many bright futures ahead.”
“We appreciate the extraordinary efforts of our talented student competitors and applaud their creativity,” says Linda Nagel, president and CEO of ASC who chaired the judging panel. “We thank all those who entered, as well as the faculty from educational institutions across the country, for their support of the initiative.”
Humber College had two entries place in the competition’s top five, which was rounded out by submissions from Red River College, Université du Québec à Montréal and York University’s Schulich School of Business. Those that finished in the top five received scholarships ranging from $10, 000 for first-place winners to $1,500 for the fifth-placed team.
The winning work can be found at TruthInAdMatters.ca
