A pair of Temple students had a chance to win the most coveted airtime spot in America.
Senior communications major, Alison Burnette collaborated with Kamilah Dubard, a senior advertising major, last September to create an original ad that they would enter into the Chevy Super Bowl Ad Challenge.
The nationwide contest, where more than 800 college students applied, asked participants to design an ad for Chevrolet’s new lineup cars. The winning team would have their ad air during last Sunday’s Super Bowl XLI.Their advertisement titled “Are You Whipped?” spotlights a man who after suffering from memory loss and wearing a neck brace arrives at a police station unaware of how he got there. A flashback reveals that the man was so impressed by Chevy’s new lineup of cars that he strained his neck to checking them out and as a result, suffered from whiplash.
“We stayed up until four in the morning coming up with that concept,” Dubard said.
But Burnette and Dubard was not one of the five teams selected by Chevy as finalists.
Although their commercial did not appear during last weekend’s championship game, Burnette and Dubard received a nice surprise as runner-ups.
Their commercial debuted on CBS’ “The Early Show” where it was placed under the “Most Humorous” category for the morning show’s own favorite Chevy commercial contest. Viewers were asked to pick their favorite ad in online poll. The team also lost this competition, but that didn’t damper their moods one bit.
“I was so excited that we were on ‘The Early Show.’ That’s a nationwide thing,” Burnette said.
Dubard said she was half-asleep when the commercial aired. “I woke up at 8:30 a.m., and it came on at 8:45 a.m. Alison called me practically hyperventilating.”
The girls, known to speak in pairs and finish each other’s sentences, attributed their success to how well they work together.
“I need somebody who will tell me what’s wrong with my idea,” Dubard said. “Alison was good at making lists and organizing things. When I wanted to watch Grey’s Anatomy, she’d make me work.”
Holly Otterbein can be reached at holly.otterbein@temple.edu.
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