photo by Tyler Banash
Jon Ermlick leads a focus group in discussion on ways to make Pizza Hut more attractive to millennials.

Seated in an circle of tables and chairs, the nine students of Bob O’Gara’s IMC Capstone – Ad Competition course assembled to devise a campaign of national scale, which could possibly change the way the entire country eats pizza. 

Pizza Hut is this year’s sponsor for the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC), which is being held mid-April in New York City, Co-Account Executive Kelli Murphy explained. 

“Our team’s challenge is to build a 27-page book and a presentation for Pizza Hut to improve its online and mobile ordering,” Murphy said. “They don’t want people to call in anymore.” 

Among the exciting ideas the class plans to bring to New York are app incentives, textbook discounts and a pop-up pizza truck akin to the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile. Murphy said the team is working on attracting young pizza-eating adults by rewarding them for using their mobile phone applications to make orders.

The philosophy behind their campaign, which has contributed to its overall theme, leans on fond retrospective memories of growing up with Pizza Hut. Members of the millennial generation have fallen out of touch with the company as the market for pizza becomes oversaturated with options. Even the Pizza Hut menu has gone to excess, admitted Jon Ermlick during a focus group organized by him and the rest of the advertising team, giving additional reasons as to why Pizza Hut prefers orders made online as it reduces the chance for miscommunication.

The campaign the students create for the competition will be presented before a panel of judges to be appraised on categories such as overall presentation, ability to answer questions and practicality. O’Gara, who will be returning to New York with the students for his 10th consecutive year, stressed the importance of this competition and how it benefits the participants. 

“It reinforces the value of the education that these guys get for four years here. And it is as professional and real-world as it could be,” O’Gara said. “I’ve shown these books to some top people at ad agencies and they go, ‘Wow, your students did this?’” 

Co-account Executive Melanie Vadney considered the class as it pertains to a career in advertising with severity, but also with confidence. 

“I think if you’re at this point and you’re not sure, this is a surefire way to get you out of it. It’s a very high-intensity course, and we have really high expectations, but I don’t think it’s anything that these people can’t meet,” Vadney said. 

Past competitors have proven an invaluable asset to the current preparing team, offering insight and warnings to better prepare current students for what’s in store. Noelle Novakovich and Travis Zimmerman, both participants of last year’s NSAC, visited O’gara’s class with a copy of their own book and a lot of stories to tell. After hearing about the plans for this year’s competition, they were not displeased. 

“You guys definitely have a good direction,” Novakovich said. 

Winners of this competition will be sent to Las Vegas for the final round. The winning team of the Las Vegas competition will see its ideas put into effect by Pizza Hut for the following season. However, an exciting detail about the competition is that as the sponsoring company, Pizza Hut has the option to pick and choose. 

“If we make something cool, we could see something that we’ve made Pizza Hut using later on, even if we don’t win,” Murphy said.