Will Work for Credit

Liz Underwood and Melissa Hillebrenner are lounging on the top floor of Dallas' Nikita vodka bar, listening to thumping dance music and squinting through artificial smoke wafting up from the dance floor below. Nothing unusual about a couple of jeans-and T-shirt-clad 21-year-olds hanging out in a club. Only these two college students are there for school. The bar serves as a set for their class project, which is being turned into a Nokia commercial that will air nationwide. "For this to happen is a surprise and a shock," says Underwood. Seven months ago the two University of Missouri-Columbia senior advertising majors registered for a broadcast class. Working on a campaign—usually for a local client—was par for the course. But last fall Nokia offered to give the class an assignment to sell a new phone, an arrangement set up through Chris Smith, chief strategy officer at one of Nokia's promotional agencies, Omnicom-owned The Marketing Arm in Dallas. Smith's father, Jack, teaches the class.Turning to college kids made sense. The 3650 camera phone targets the youth market, and the class was a "test bed of what [college students] are looking for from Nokia," says Debra Kennedy, general manager of consumer marketing for Nokia USA, based in Irving, Texas. She and Bridget Ahr, group manager of consumer marketing, flew to Columbia in September, explained the brand to the class, handed out early models of the phone and gave the students a creative brief. During the next few months, 12 groups of two had access to Kennedy and her team. In December, Kennedy, Ahr, The Marketing Arm's Smith and Brian Nadurak, a creative director at roster shop The Richards Group in Dallas, returned to the school to rate the student spots in categories such as "fits Nokia brand image" and "clearness of message." The arrangement was supposed to end there, but Kennedy was so impressed by the work, she decided to make two of the ideas into commercials. "On the flight home," she says, "we thought, 'Let's use this in the launch: By students for students.' "In the spot Underwood and Hillebrenner created, a 19-year-old named Kat says goodbye to her friend, Veronica, who plans to study that night. Kat playfully agrees to keep an eye on Veronica's boyfriend, Jake, who's going to the same club. When Kat sees Jake flirting with some girls, she takes a picture with her phone and sends it to Veronica, who sighs so loudly in the study room that the people around her look up, including a cute boy sitting across the way. She takes a picture of the guy and sends it to Kat with the text, "Jake who?" The spot ends with, "The Nokia 3650 camera phone. The new twist of fate," and an invitation to go to the company's Web site to see more student-made spots. "It wasn't based on personal experience," says Hillebrenner of the concept, but "we tried to make it as real as possible." Kennedy slated the 30-second ad to run as part of the second phase of the phone's launch. That spot, along with one from 22-year-old students Holli Coleman and Libby Hall, breaks this week on American Idol and on cable networks including MTV and the Cartoon Network. Coleman and Hall's commercial features a teenager who is so embarrassed to return his girlfriend's "I love you" in front of his pals, he sends her a picture of the message written in ketchup instead. Once the concepts were chosen, work began immediately, with both teams holding regular conversations with The Richards Group, which produced the spots that launched the phone. "Nokia said, 'If we award these students, we want you to produce to the standards you do to help make it real,' " says Richards creative group head Chuck Schiller. His team explained script changes to the students, along with the realities of a budget and which shots would work and which wouldn't.Though these were the first student teams to create national ads for Nokia, they may not be the last. Kennedy and her group have committed to the Missouri program and to those of three other colleges for at least two years.Hillebrenner, who grew up in Quincy, Ill., hopes to go on job interviews after the shoot. Underwood, whose family lives in Katy, Texas, plans to work for her sorority for a year. Both enjoy the surprised reactions they get when they tell people which side of the business they plan to pursue. "We both want to be account execs," Hillebrenner says. "And this hasn't changed our minds. We feel that we're much more well-rounded in advertising now."

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Will Work for Credit

Mindy Charski

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Mindy Charski