The University of Alabama Ad Team will be competing at the national competition in Austin, Texas, from June 9 to 12.

The team created and presented an advertising campaign for Nissan, their major corporate sponsor. The company asked the teams to create a campaign that was targeted at multicultural millennials in the 18- to 19-year-old age bracket and that would promote their most popular models of Altima, Rogue, Sentra, Versa and Pathfinder.

In order to advance to Nationals, the team competed at Regionals in Nashville, Tenn., and defeated teams from universities in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

UA’s Ad Team has competed in this competition since the 1980s, winning district seven times and nationals once. They also placed second in nationals in 2009, with the LessThanUThink campaign.

The team consists of 20 students who apply to be on the team in September. Though the team is open to anyone, advertising and public relations majors are preferred. The team makes a 32-page book containing their presentation. They also give a 20-minute multimedia presentation and a 10-minute question and answer session.

“Alabama’s team is always one of the best teams when it comes to research,” said Meredith Hawkins, a senior majoring in advertising and president of the Ad Team. “We conducted more than 1,100 research impressions this year. This includes in-depth interviews, test driving at dealerships, online surveys and concept testing through traditional and nontraditional settings.”

“I think that for any team, the hardest part of competition is all of the preparation that has to happen before you go,” said Lauren Alyworth, a senior majoring in advertising and member of the Ad Team. “There are countless, seemingly endless, nights of hard work and collaboration that go on months and months before you even get to the competition.”

However, all that hard work is well worth it to compete at this level.

“I am thrilled with this year’s outcome,” said Ad Team sponsor and professor of advertising and public relations Teri Henley.

“The amount of time and effort the team put forth this semester has allowed us to feel extremely proud to be a competitor at Nationals in June.  Every member of the team dedicated an entire semester to creating a winning campaign.  There is nothing better than having your hard work resonate within the minds of professionals,” said senior advertising major and Ad Team member Courtney Brennan.

“We deserve this chance. We’ve got 20 incredibly talented people who built a solid campaign. Everyday, we tell ourselves, ‘This year, we win,’” Hawkins added.

To find out more about the team, the campaign or even to make a donation, visit www.adteam.org or check out the Twitter hash tag the team has created, #stachetag.