AdVasion An Experience of a Lifetime

AdVasion An Experience of a Lifetime The American Advertising Federation (AAF), the advertising club on campus, held its annual AdVasion event on Friday. Whats AdVasion, you ask? Its an amazing event planned by the executive board (which Im part of) for our members to experience advertising and tech companies in Chicago, Illinois. It all started Friday morning with  a 4 a.m. wake-up call. Of course, no one likes getting  up so  early, but we  had to suit up for the 6 a.m. coach bus arrival on Green Street. We ordered 2  buses to drive  120 advertising students up to Chicago! We arrived at the Wrigley Building, where we split off into 6 or so groups of 20 students. A total of 18 advertising and tech companies were able to host us,  and each student was able  to visit 3 of those companies throughout the day. The best part  was that Illinois  alumni were the ones hosting us! I had the opportunity to go to Energy BBDO first. Theyre the advertising agency  that created  the Extra Gum Sarah Juan commercial! Their office was so cool, and the culture seemed like a close family. They do commercials for Wrigley and SC Johnson products like Raid and OFF! The famous Sarah Juan commercial! The second company I visited was Pandora Radio. Their office was pretty cool and of course had some great music playing. With over 84 million listeners, theyre still the #1 streaming service over Spotify. Finally, the third company I visited was called Turn. A  digital advertising agency,  they employ  a lot of Illinois alumni, ranging from College of Business to  College of Media grads. The best part of the evening was a 3-hour networking event with all of the companies we visited throughout the day.  I even  had the chance to talk to  some people from Google about their internship program! However, the best part was that my dad (a College of Media advertising alumnus) came by to network with students and to see me. It was cool watching  students reach  out to him! My friend Jane, who helps me run AAFs  public relations committee, was there too! Overall, AdVasion was a great event, and I cant wait for next year. Its just one of the many benefits of being an advertising major here at Illinois. Daniel Class of 2018 I’m an Advertising major in the College of Media. I’m from a northwest suburb of Chicago called Buffalo Grove. I chose Illinois because it was the first university in the entire world to offer an Advertising major, which is pretty cool!