A 19-member cross-college team from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh won the District 8 National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) in St. Paul, Minn., on April 19.

UW Oshkosh placed first among 10 schools competing from Canada, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Second through fourth place were awarded to Marquette University, UW-Madison and Moorhead State, respectively.

UW Oshkosh’s first-place finish qualifies the team to compete at the national competition June 8 and 9 in Atlanta.

The team is co-advised by Kathy Fredrickson and Dana Baumgart, instructors for the UW Oshkosh journalism department. Fredrickson and Baumgart co-teach “Strategic Campaigns in Advertising,” a course that students must take in order to participate in the competition. Fredrickson also advised the team to a first-place finish in 2003.

The 2008 NSAC competition required teams to create an integrated marketing plan for AOL Instant Messenger and its suite of social media products.

NSAC, sponsored by the American Advertising Federation, gives more than 3,000 college students in the U.S. and Canada the opportunity to create a strategic marketing campaign for a corporate sponsor.

Team members are Nycol Block (journalism), Margaret Brill (journalism), Marie Daniel (journalism), Matt Decker (graphic design), Ann DeVillers (journalism), Preston Fayas (marketing), Brittany Harms (journalism), JJ Heber (marketing and radio/TV/film), Tina Hove (journalism), Jessica Malcolm (journalism), Samuel Mark (radio/TV/film), Kelly Meyer (journalism), Jamie Neitzel (marketing), Erin School (journalism), Liz Schulze (marketing), Kelly Shew (journalism), Kirsten Strom (marketing), Ashley Taylor (journalism) and Heather Verhelst (graphic design).