At the third annual Minds Wide Open, ComArtSci’s international week-long advertising competition, the college welcomed creative minds from five countries. Several faculty and industry professionals around the world served as mentors for the students.
This year’s client was Hoobie, a newly-launched app that syncs social media content from multiple platforms in one place and helps people find others with similar interests.
Students were grouped into 12 teams, given two mentors and were provided with a creative brief. Then they were set free to design a creative advertising campaign for Hoobie.
The result? People from diverse backgrounds, speaking different languages and under a serious time crunch can produce truly phenomenal campaigns in less than a week. The snacks helped, too.
Team Apero
First place went to Apero for their “Hoobie Gangships” campaign. They envisioned Hoobie to be a place where people can go to find their “gang” based on similar interests. They used humor and relatable situations to assign themselves to several example gangs, such as “Third Wheel Desperates” and “Mom Spelled My Name Wrong”.
The Hive
The Hive also made waves with their “Just One” proposal. They focused on Hoobie's ability to merge every social media site into one app to create a collective, collaborative space for all users. Their proposal centered on the idea that using Hoobie was a way to “shake things up” for social users by providing the best of every platform in one place.
Team Sarah’s Friend Trevor
Sarah’s Friend Trevor’s goal was to highlight Hoobie as a way to bring people together instead of allowing social media to pull them apart due to conflicting interests and worldviews. Their tagline “Find Common Ground” was inspired by the inevitable and irritating way that people’s opinions can spill over into long-winded Facebook rants and cause conflicts in real life. Hoobie allows users to regain control of their social pages and use it for its intended purpose— to make connections.
The Eight Horsemen of the Apocalypse
The Eight Horsemen of the Apocalypse’s project was centered around the idea that in today’s world, we spend more time looking down at our cellphones than engaging with the people in our lives. From that idea the slogan “Look Up” was born. The team conceived that Hoobie was a way to help people use their social media more efficiently by sorting everything into one app. That way, people would spend more time looking up at what’s important instead of looking down at their Twitter feed.
Team Hi and 嗨
Team Hi and 嗨 (which means Hi in Chinese) were inspired by social media’s tendency to make the differences between people much more obvious than their similarities. They saw Hoobie as a way for people to “Like what you love, together”. While you often disagree with some of your Facebook friends’ political tirades, Hoobie is there to remind you that you both like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain.
By Rianna N. Middleton