Three School of Journalism and Mass Communication students won first place in a new contest run by the most prestigious advertising organization in the country.

David Baker ('99), Farrah Ferguson ('00) and Laura Hauseman ('00) won first place in the print discipline at The One Club's first young Creative Professional Competition in New York City in May.

They beat young professionals from advertising agencies and students from graduate portfolio schools from around the country.

“We didn’t realize how big the award was until after the fact,” Ferguson said. “Our group worked hard, and this is a good payoff for us.

“As for the future, we are of course welcoming any six-figure job offers,” she said with a grin.

The award is a coup, said David Slayden, associate professor at the School and director of the Lab for New Media Strategy and Design, an Omnicom-funded project.

Full-time students and junior creatives age 25 and under just entering advertising had the opportunity to demonstrate their talents before a panel of judges representing the top creative talent at leading advertising agencies from around the world. The event was held during the 2000 One Show Festival.

“Winning the top prize in this competition is a great distinction for the students and for our School,” Slayden said. “It is arguably the top prize in the advertising industry. That we were able to win over a highly talented field demonstrates both the excellence of our students and the commitment our program makes to teaching.

“Only one other undergraduate school was invited to participate in the competition, which makes it extra sweet for our program, and the recognition is already providing job offers for the students from national headhunters,” he said.

The One Club for Art and Copy is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting creativity in the craft of advertising. As part of its mission to promote high standards of creative excellence, The One Club produces the advertising industry’s most prestigious awards program, The One Show.

Associate Professor Brett Robbs, head of the School’s Advertising sequence, said the award reflects the tremendous commitment of local ad professionals who teach at the School.

“Our students’ success says a lot about how far our creative program has come. But that success would not have been possible without the hard work of adjunct creative faculty such as Jonathan Schoenberg, Eric Liebhauser, Norm Shearer (‘97) and Michael Smilanic,” he said. “They’ve put in untold hours both in and out of class.”

Baker, Ferguson and Hauseman were in New York for the competition May 8 and 9. Baker accepted the award for the team while the other two returned to Boulder to attend commencement ceremonies.

Thirty teams were chosen during preliminary rounds to compete in three disciplines: Print, Interactive/New Media and Television. The finalists were invited to New York City and given 24 hours to complete an assignment.

The CU-Boulder team had to execute an ad campaign on the role of the paper clip in the future in light of its 100th year anniversary and the emphasis on an increasingly paperless world.

Their project, titled “Nothing Can Replace a Paper Clip,” used three winning scenarios to beat the competition, including a medical chart holding papers together with a wad of chewing gum.

A second team with seniors Jennifer Scholl and Matt Woodhams-Roberts also qualified for The One Club competition.

A collaborative university-industry effort made the trip possible. Professor Stewart Hoover, interim dean of the School, provided initial funding, and additional support for the trip was arranged by Phil Karsh (‘57), chair of the School’s Advisory Board, and Ron Askew, president of the Integer Group. The Integer Group, based in Lakewood, is the largest advertising agency in Colorado.

To see the other two winning ads from the CU team, visit The One Club Web site at www.oneclub.com.

CU also had a strong showing in The One Show’s student competition. The team of Stan Bell, a 1999 art major graduate, and the School’s Matt McGrath (‘99) was one of 20 merit finalists selected from hundreds of entries. Competitors had to design print ads for Vietnam tourism.

Their success at The One Show has prompted Bell and McGrath to try to find work as a team.

“We’re just good friends,” McGrath said. “We’re both just children, and there’s an understanding there. Everything seems to click when we start to work on an assignment.”

“It’s hard to keep them separated,” said Schoenberg, creative director for TDA Advertising & Design in Boulder, where Bell and McGrath were interns. “They are smart and funny, and advertising should be smart and funny.

“I’m really proud of these guys. The One Show is the top creative show in the nation,” he said, noting that Bell and McGrath also picked up three silver medals at a recent Ad Club of Los Angeles awards show and that their work was accepted into the Denver Art Directors Club show and the Denver Advertising Federation show.

Robbs said improvements in the School’s advertising program were also evidenced by spring recruiting visits to campus by two of San Francisco’s most prominent agencies, Goodby Silverstein and Partners, and Goldberg Moser O’Neill, who were looking to fill account service jobs.