4A’s Shows Circus some Love

Tagged as 4A's, advertising, art direction, Atlanta, copywriter, copywriting, creative circus, creative director, design, Georgia Lottery, student work, The Creative Circus,

Atlanta, GA-

Guest blogger: Andi Mints, 7th quarter Design student  

Ad students are after one simple thing: an ad job. We come to The Circus looking for instruction, critique, and experiences to make us stand out from our fellow classmates in hopes of landing that dream job right out of the gate. But as stellar talent surrounds us and internships abound, the things that used to make an ad student’s resume shine don’t seem to be all that shiny compared to, well, everyone else in ad school. What’s a scrappy ad kid to do?

The American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) is in the business of advertising all over the US and that includes developing new talent. The 4A’s employs their own Institute of Advanced Advertising Studies (IAAS) in ten different cities to train the up-and-coming best and brightest by providing a 14-week class bringing together account folks and creatives to work to solve a brand challenge from a local agency’s client. IAAS students hear from expert speakers on topics ranging from public speaking to media planning to accounting and everything in between.

In Atlanta, IAAS partners with many local agencies and this year began partnering with The Creative Circus for a boost in creative input. For Circus students, that means the most realistic team project they’ll be a part of until that first real job. For creatives, this is invaluable—getting to see how account and media decisions are made provides them insight not every creative person has. And the agency folks get a chance to actually take a stab at creative concepting. Every IAAS student gets to flex those brain muscles and pitch to a big name client. 12 students chose to participate in this inaugural year of the partnership between IAAS and The Circus.

This year, The Georgia Lottery Corporation provided the brand challenge to connect the Lottery to Millennials, a generation not particularly motivated by one-in-a-million chances. The four teams will each pitch their final solutions to a panel of ten judges (a collection of clients, agency folks, and expert speakers) on May 13th. With just a few shorts weeks left until that day of judgment, these teams have a lot of work yet to do but one thing is certain: those 12 Circus students are getting the edge on their fellow circus-mates missing out.

Stay tuned to hear more about the pitches & the winner of this year’s competition!