Daily Pioneer News

PLATTEVILLE - Three students from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville recently won the CBS Early Show contest for "Most Offbeat" ad in Chevrolet's Super bowl Ad Challenge. The contest had pared the category down to three entries which were aired on Jan. 31, and in subsequent online voting, viewers chose the UW-Platteville team's submission, "To the Moon and Back" as their favorite.

Luke Wolf, Jason Wilcynski and Melissa Klang created an ad featuring people driving cars to a Super bowl party on the moon, set to the soundtrack of Savage Garden's hit, "To the Moon and Back." The idea began as part of Wolf's independent study course last fall under the guidance of Bernie Harris, professor of business. In a series of meetings, Harris showed Wolf what an animated storyboard would look like, discussed marketing concepts, and encouraged him to submit an entry.

Wolf said his initial musings were prompted by his older brother, Pete, who mentioned that the U. S. would soon be returning to the moon in 2010. He then recruited Wilcynski as a brainstorming partner and they began to kick around ideas, finally settling on driving to the moon. Not being artists themselves, they weren't quite sure what to do next.

"We tried to make a mock up of the commercial using matchbook cars, which failed miserably. Then we attempted to learn Photoshop, which also failed. Then we tried an art major - and that worked," he said. Having conceptualized their idea, Wolf and Wilcynski put up flyers advertising for an artist.

According to Melissa Klang, a sophomore majoring in art and graphic design from Reedsburg, sometimes opportunity doesn't come knocking loudly but fluttering quietly from a flyer in the art building. She passed up the flyer a few times but found herself drawn to it and eventually responded. She was surprised and excited to find out what Wolf and Wilcynski had in mind and agreed to help them bring their vision to life.

"The news kept getting better as Chevy contacted us later saying they loved our ad and would like us to create a mockup of it to possibly be featured on the CBS Early Show. Even though we didn't get to be finalists for the overall best category, it was still exciting to find out we had a chance to get our concept shown. I was excited and waiting and watching over break to see if our ad would get aired. When I found out that our ad would be aired in the 'Most Offbeat' category, I was so excited. This was a chance to have their concept and my artwork shown on national television!" Klang said.

Wolf, a junior majoring in business administration from Marshfield, and Wilcynski, a junior majoring in economics from Stoughton, said this was an opportunity to get hands on experience in the fields they will be pursuing after graduation. "This was a fun and entertaining project that pushed our abilities and allowed us to learn time management at a new level. This project gave me an awareness of what I would possibly be doing in an advertising position someday, and Jason learned more about the difficulties of marketing," Wolf said.

Harris has been helping students to enter such contests since 1988. He pointed out that many of the other teams in the Chevrolet contest featured students who came from schools which focus exclusively on design and production of commercials and other types of advertisements, which makes the strong UWP showing exceptionally notable.

"These kids were really novices at doing something such as this competition. They were extremely motivated and worked well independently. The idea was all theirs. They actually required very little direction - they really took control over their concept," he said.

Contact: Bernard Harris, professor, UWP Department of Business and Accounting, (608) 342-1701, harrisb@uwplatt.edu Prepared by: Evelyn Martens, UWP Public Relations, (608) 342-1194,martense@uwplatt.edu