Students Honored in Heineken PSA Challenge

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Heineken USA and Effie Worldwide, Inc. today announced winners of the second annual Heineken USA/Collegiate Effie PSA Challenge, where advertising and marketing students showcase their talents by creating a public service announcement focused on responsible behavior.

The first place winners received a cash prize of $3,000 and second place received $1,500. The two top teams presented their campaigns to the Heineken USA marketing and communications teams in New York.

Finalists Stacey Bragg, Amanda Quinton and Sara Sanders from Furman University in Greenville, SC, leveraged Heineken’s history of responsibility and target-market research to position Taxi Magic as the hip, new and easy way to be responsible in their campaign, “Responsibility has Evolved.”

The team from Iowa State University in Ames, IA, also impressed judges with a social media focused submission, “Tag Your Taxi.” The plan, submitted by Justin Lobaito, Lucas A. Droessler and Maria Borosnov, encourages users to document and share their “great decisions after a great night” by tagging images from their taxi ride home to Facebook.

For this competition, students 21 and older representing advertising and marketing departments at universities nationwide were tasked with creating and pitching a full-fledged public service communications campaign that encourages adult consumers to make “every night” a night of great choices. In particular, participants were required to find ways to encourage their audiences to learn, understand, download and use Taxi Magic, a smartphone application that provides an innovative alternative to avoid drinking and driving. Heineken USA is an exclusive sponsor of Taxi Magic, which provides consumers the ability to connect with a local taxicab company anywhere in the United States.

“This competition underscores Heineken USA’s ongoing commitment to encourage responsible and legal alcohol consumption,” said Dan Tearno, senior vice president and chief corporate relations officer, Heineken USA. “This program allows students to learn firsthand the strategic and creative process in PSA development, and at the same time, we collectively foster the next generation of advertising professionals to effectively spread awareness around important issues such as drinking and driving.”

“Launching the collegiate Effie competition with Heineken USA in 2010 proved to be a fun and effective way to recognize, educate and inspire future marketing professionals,” said Mary Lee Keane, president of Effie Worldwide. “We were again blown away by the talent and ambition of this year’s entrants and are excited to continue to cultivate and encourage future industry leaders as we offer this opportunity on an annual basis.”