A team of nearly two dozen Ithaca College students took home first place in the American Advertising Federation (AAF) National Student Advertising Competition at the organization’s annual conference, thanks to a last-minute change in strategy.

The challenge was to create a strategic advertising, marketing, and media campaign for Wienerschnitzel hot dogs that also elevated perceptions about the hot dog in general. The team made a daring decision just a few weeks before they had to submit their plan that paved the way to victory.

“We rewrote the entire plan, practically from scratch,” said Carlie McClinsey ’19, one of the team’s co-chairs and presenters. “We weren’t pumped about the direction we were going. Our creative team came up with a great new idea in two days, and we went ahead with it.”

Their idea? Defend the Dog, a courtroom concept where hot dogs were the defendants in a trial. “To us, hot dogs have always been a good food,” explained Connor Sheffield ’19, a member of the group’s creative team. “They’ve just been falsely accused of being a bad one. We set out to defend them.”

This is the first time since 1993 that an IC team has won the national competition.

“I was very excited for this year’s Ad Lab team win, and within hours of the announcement, 10 or so of our 1993 team were on Facebook Messenger talking excitedly about it,” said Patrick Holland ’93. “The amount of hard work, creativity, and strategic thinking—along with a bit of luck—to accomplish what they’ve done is remarkable.”

Scott Hamula, the team’s mentor and advisor, who is also associate professor and chair of IC’s Department of Strategic Communication, received AAF’s 2019 Distinguished Advertising Educator award during the conference.