Student team from Boston receives IAA InterAd X World Champion trophy at Dubai Congress

The IAA InterAd X competition is part of the IAA's Professional Development program and is designed to give students a chance to test their skill with a real world client case study.

"We are committed to the training and education of the next generation of marketing communications professionals," said former IAA Chairman and World President Michael Lee.

"Many of the participating schools use the IAA InterAd X competition as part of their marketing and advertising curriculum."

This year's IAA InterAd X client for the advertising competition was the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Entries were received from 14 schools in 12 countries, and teams were judged by UNEP project administrators and IAA professionals.

The UNEP case brief focused on electronic waste and challenged the students to take a comprehensive approach to developing their campaign. "The world desperately needs a better management of waste from mobile phones, personal computers and other consumer electronics. Recycling and re-using is one part of the solution. For that we need the awareness of the young consumers, "said UNEP project administrator Ms. Solange Montillaud-Joyel. "We were extremely delighted to see such creative and cool campaign ideas in this year's competition, and hope now to find IAA members willing to take up the challenge and help us to actually produce and run the campaign."

Four other regional teams also reached the IAA InterAd X World finals and were given global runner-up awards based on their juried scores. The runners-up are:

Global 2nd Runner-up:
Sublime - American University in Sharjah

Global 3rd Runner-up:
Think Tank - RMIT, Australia

Tie Global 4th Runner-up:
TargAd - SAWI, Switzerland

Tie Global 4th Runner-up:
Clickers - Politecnico Grancolombiano, Colombia

The winning entry is among the campaigns included in the Advertising Community Together (ACT) Responsible: Great Ads for a Better Future exhibition on display at the DICC concourse.

An initiative created by employees of AdForum.com in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the ACT exhibition showcases a comprehensive and unique compilation of sustainable development and corporate social responsibility campaigns from nearly 140 advertising agencies in 37 countries.

The exhibition, which includes posters, print advertisements, TV spots and reports from companies, NGOs and international organizations, will be on display in the main concourse of the Dubai International Convention Centre and is open to the general public, free of charge.

The 40th IAA World Congress and Exhibition continues until Thursday, March 23, 2006.