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Advertising seniors Morgan Hoff and Tanner Thompson have a lot in common. They both interned at The Richards Group; both toured New York City ad agencies with Temerlin Advertising Institute; both are involved in Greek life (Delta Gamma for Hoff and Beta Theta Pi for Thompson) and both are graduating in May 2017 with a B.A. in Advertising /Creative track with a minor in graphic design from SMU Meadows School of the Arts Temerlin Advertising Institute.

They also both love puns. Now, thanks to “The Cheesiest” campaign they’ve ever worked on, they are both winners of the 13^th Annual DSVC National Student Show’s Best in Print Advertising/General and Best Copy categories. (“DSVC” stands for Dallas Society of Visual Communications.)

“The judges really cracked up at the copywriting,” says Nathan Gathright, DSVC board member and chair of the National Student Show and Conference. “One of this year’s judges, John Custer, told me ‘I’ll never be able to think of the word “provolone” the same.’” Custer is founder and principal of Dandy creative studio, and was one of five judges for the show.

The campaign started as an assignment in the Advanced Portfolio class, led by Stan Richards Professor in Creative Advertising Willie Baronet. Hoff and Thompson decided to create a mock campaign for Dallas Grilled Cheese Company. Although they both concentrate on art direction, they also tapped into their word crafting skills and created a series of cheesy puns set on cheddar-colored backgrounds (see examples above).

In addition to their “The Cheesiest” winning campaign, Hoff and Thompson each had other works displayed at the show as well: Hoff had a logo for HoneyLove Custom Cakery and Thompson had a poster for NASA. The award show, which received nearly 1,200 entries across all categories this year, selected 123 entries to display in the show. Fifteen colleges were represented as finalists and awards were presented on Saturday, April 1, 2017 at the Doubletree Hotel in Dallas.

By attending the show, Hoff says she has a much clearer picture of the level of talent she will be working – and competing – with after graduation.

“The fellow competitors were from all over, such as Miami Ad School, which is an intense portfolio school,” said Hoff. “There were a lot of really talented students there. Seeing all the work at the show opened my eyes as to who we are competing against for jobs.”

Baronet is thrilled about the students’ big wins.

“This is one of the hardest student shows to get into, and it’s even harder to win awards there,” said Baronet. “In addition to Miami Ad School, they were competing with top advertising schools from across the country such as Oklahoma State University, Santa Fe University of Art and Design, Virginia Tech, University of Kansas and more.

“Morgan and Tanner continue to work hard to make sure their work is compelling and memorable,” said Baronet. “They are willing to fail, take risks and know the value in exploring lots of directions no matter how weird. I’m sure I’ll be sharing their creative with future classes to inspire incoming students to do the same.”

Thompson and Hoff were encouraged by their professors to enter the work into the show. They got their first inkling they were on to something by the response they got when they presented the campaign to their class and two guest professional art directors.

“One of the guests, who has an outstanding reputation, is also known for his brutally honest critiques,” said Thompson. “He was the first to speak after our presentation. The first words out of his mouth were, ‘So, who keeps the award?’ That’s when we knew we had to enter ‘The Cheesiest’ campaign in the show.”

Temerlin takeaways

Looking back on their Temerlin advertising education, both Hoff and Thompson agree that learning to think creatively has been paramount. But they say other aspects of the program will also help them succeed in the field.

“Advertising has to be about connecting back to people, making sure you’re making an impact on someone in some way,” said Hoff.

“And making sure that the things you’re doing aren’t just going to happen in a void, but they are happening with people, for people,” added Thompson.

“In addition to learning how to think creatively, we learned how to think logistically,” said Hoff. “We learned how things work and we honed the skills to see what kind of creative possibilities make sense for the right target and the right place over the progression of the project.”

Thompson agrees, and adds that problem-solving and project logistics are not only imperative skills, but also transferable to fields outside of advertising.

“Although I plan to work in advertising after graduation, I’m confident that I could choose whatever field I wanted and still be useful because of the creative thinking and problem-solving skills that have come out of my training at Temerlin.”

Read more about SMU Meadows Temerlin Advertising Institute, Professor Willie Baronet and the .