students

2008 BMA STUDENT BELL AWARD

Click here for printable Rules and Statement of Assurance.

OBJECTIVE
The BMA Student Bell Award Program provides annual cash awards for Wisconsin college and technical school students and to sponsoring schools.  The competition is an opportunity for students to develop business-to-business or consumer communications materials for any actual or fictitious service, product, or company.

Modifications of work from a class project or an independent study with or without academic credit as well as work completed specifically for this competition are acceptable entries.  Individual students or teams of four can enter.  Students must be working toward undergraduate degrees.

DESCRIPTION
There are two divisions of student competition: the single tactic division and the campaign division.  A committee of BMA professionals will evaluate all the student entries.  The winning student or student team in each division will receive a $500 award and will win $500 for the school department of the sponsoring faculty member.  Students may enter different projects in each of the division, but only one entry per division will be allowed. Each entry must meet the guidelines and be accompanied with the $10 entrance fee and appropriate forms. The awards will be presented at the 2008 BMA Bell Awards Banquet on the evening of April 10, 2008 in the Italian Community Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The second place winners for each category will receive an Excellence Award, and will be listed in the BMA website, but will not receive any cash award.


Single Tactic Division
An entry in this category can be, for example, a print advertisement, direct mail piece, trade show exhibit, sales promotion program, public relations project, web site, radio or TV spot, billboard, news feature placement or other communications effort.  Each entry must include a two-page Executive Summary that includes an overall situation analysis describing the tactic’s objective, target audience, research used, and other clarifying information.

Campaign Division
An entry in this category could be a marketing, advertising or public relations campaign plan.  Each entry must submit a two-page Executive Summary of the campaign with the plan.  The Executive Summary should include a summary of the situation analysis, research, target audience and objectives.  The full plan should not be more than 20 pages and may include more detail on the subjects covered in the Executive Summary, schedules, supporting research or examples of implementation. 

AWARD CRITERIA
The award is based on the following criteria:

  • Organization and presentation of ideas and concepts effectively, in a clear and logical order
  • Proper and clear written communication
  • Use of appropriate factual information
  • Creativity and design
  • Appropriateness of entry to target audience
  • Entry’s potential effectiveness
  • Sited references
  • Original work


GUIDELINES FOR FORMATTING
All entries must be bound. Report covers and binders with a spine of one inch or less are acceptable. All creative work must be mounted to black art boards with 2” of board space around all examples. All entries must include a title page and be typed, single-spaced. No hand-written entries will be accepted. Any references must be sited, all executive summaries, situational analysis, objectives, research and creative execution must be original – any plagiarized work will be disqualified.

The title page must list the following:
            BMA Student Bell Award
            Title of Entry
            Student Participant(s)
            Sponsoring Faculty Member
            School and Department
            Date Project Was Completed

Three copies of each entry must be submitted with a signed copy of the BMA Student Bell Award Statement of Assurance and a $10 entry fee.

CHECKLIST
In addition to the items outlined above, entrant(s) must observe the following rules to make the competition as fair as possible among all participants.

  1. Three copies of the entry must be submitted.  All copies must be bound.
  1. The entry must include a two-page Executive Summary.  Additional supporting attachments if required may be included and reference in the summary.
  1. Colored paper, ink, pictures, etc. are allowed.  Page borders, artwork, attachments, foldouts, paste-ups, photographs, etc. may also be used.
  1. If using copyrighted materials, such as photos from an online image provider, or any materials not created by the entrant(s), these materials must be footnoted and the source must be cited.
  1. The Statement of Assurance must be signed by all participants and sponsoring faculty member and included with entry. (This is on the last page of the PDF.
  1. Submission of a $10 entry fee in the form of a check made payable to BMA-Milwaukee must be included with the entry.
  1. All entries must be received by Wednesday March 19, 2008 at 5 p.m. CDT.  Please mail or hand-deliver (no electronic submissions) entries to:

BMA Student Bell Award
C2 Graphics Productivity Solutions**
222 E. Erie Street, Suite 330
Milwaukee, WI 53202
(414) 431-0062

** Location and address has changed.

Please forward all questions or comments to: Pam Zajichek, Zajichek.pam@basco.com