Luckie and McKee Foods Host Campaign Challenge for Ad Students

A group of University of Georgia advertising students is one-step closer to their first ‘real’ marketing job after they gained some professional experience through an initiative hosted by Luckie and longtime client McKee Foods Corporation.

The Chattanooga-based maker of Little Debbie and other snack brands collaborated with Luckie to create a college campaigns class assignment for McKee Foods’ snack brand, Drake’s Cakes.

The two-month initiative engaged students from UGA’s Talking Dog agency to create an original campaign focused on engaging millennial consumers and present it to a panel of judges at McKee’s headquarters in Chattanooga. The project culminated on April 10 with the UGA student team earning high marks for research/analysis, creative elements, channel strategy and other factors from their overall presentation.

Judges included a panel of 30 McKee Foods’ marketing team leaders and Luckie employees, including agency president John Gardner. The assignment, which challenged the UGA advertising and marketing undergrads to “redefine Drake’s Millennial audience,” started at the beginning of spring semester, when Luckie provided a 40 page brief to Dr. Bryan Reber, a UGA professor and department head of advertising and public relations studies at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications.

The student team from UGA included seven juniors and seniors working with Talking Dog, UGA's student-lead advertising agency. Participating students include Lindsey Armstrong, Hannah Cromey, Aubrey Gainous, Stacy Lee, Casey McGinty, James Ogletree and Hiba Rizvi.

The students studied an array of proprietary data from Drake’s Cakes including sales figures, shopper and household demographics, coupon and other offer redemption rates, and social media engagement. The team used the information to develop a campaign they themed “Take A Drake” highlighting the Drake’s Cakes mascot who appears on regionally-known snacks such as Yodels, Ring Dings, Devil Dogs and Yankee Doodles.

“The project challenged us to analyze data and to dig in with independent research, which proved critical,” said Rizvi. “When we looked at the data from McKee and our research, a perspective emerged that millennials can ‘take a break,’ which led us to suggest ‘Take A Drake’ and we built our presentation around this.”

“We were impressed with how the UGA team applied their analysis of the data, which is at the core of each campaign we produce for McKee Foods and other Luckie clients,” said Gardner. “Not only was the creative sound, but the presentations were excellent.

“The level of detail and the authority these students brought to the meeting was terrific to see,” Gardner added. “There is a tremendous amount of talent coming out of UGA’s advertising program, and we are excited about the opportunity to work with some of these students again after graduation.”

McKee Foods also sang the praises of the student team and project.

“It was an excellent day with some viable recommendations,” said Jeff Badger, director of brands for McKee Foods. “The students’ ‘Take A Drake’ proposal provided our team with a fresh look at the possibilities for Drake’s Cakes.”

Luckie also collaborates with the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication on two other initiatives: The AdPR Academy, and the SEE Suite Social Media Engagement and Evaluation Lab.

“We’ll extend this successful partnership with UGA into the 2019-2020 school year, and we anticipate more great student work as we engage the future generations of advertising professionals,” said Gardner.