Excerpt taken from the Iowa State News article.
Two recent Greenlee School graduates showcased their knowledge of political media planning in Washington, D.C.
Emily Belloma (’17 marketing, advertising) and Mia Guion (’17 advertising) won the 2017 Media Plan Case Competition, earning the National Excellence in Media Award from the Washington Media Scholars Foundation. Each also received a $5,000 scholarship.
The competition is the cornerstone of the foundation’s Media Scholars Program, which challenges students to apply their knowledge by developing public policy advertising campaigns.
After an initial qualifying round, 30 teams of semi-finalists were invited to participate in the program’s case competition. Of those, only six teams were selected to present their final media plans in person at the Newseum on June 8 and participate in a week of networking and educational opportunities at top advertising, media and broadcast firms in D.C.
This year, the case focused on the campaign of Herman Cain, a 2012 U.S. Republican Party presidential candidate. Competitors were asked to develop a media planning strategy if the early frontrunner had continued his campaign after it became engulfed in controversy and his poll numbers dropped.
Belloma and Guion focused their hypothetical $5 million budget and two-month time frame on tactics that would help Cain win the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.
“Honestly, I think being in Iowa helped me prepare in general. A lot of people don’t understand how important the Iowa caucus is in the campaign, and I think the fact that we focused on the Iowa caucus made our plan stand out,” Belloma said.
Read More in the Original Article on the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, at Iowa State University, website.