TWO BIC Teams Selected as Finalists in One Club's YOUNG ONES Competition!!

4/17/2017 Anonymous 0 Comments



Coming off BIC's 2016 Gold Pencil win, The ONE Club has JUST announced two BIC teams as 2017 Finalists for its Young Ones Competition.

Chosen from a large, selective pool of international submissions (from Milan to Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro to Stockholm) by a jury of top industry professionals and educators, the BIC team of Enmanuel Vargas, Yulia Lesnichaya, Surabhi Govindarajan, and Tung-Han Lin will be winning a 2017 One Show Pencil for “VIDEALL,” a partnership proposal between two tech giants: Google’s Chrome browser and Microsoft’s Sign Language Translator. VIDEALL is a plug-in that converts audio, subtitles or closed captioning from online video into sign language  which will bring digital inclusion to the 360 million hearing impaired.

The BIC team of Sean Feol-Baugh, Kacy Charles, Fidel Frias, and Joseph Yoo will be MERIT award winners for “Three to Free,” a one-of-a-kind partnership between five of the world’s largest telecoms companies to help stop human trafficking. Facilitated by Partners Global, the telecoms will roll out the latest generation of emergency call tracking and create a single international emergency call number: 323. The service will automatically direct calls based on the country of origin to local law enforcement with specific location data so that all users may speak to someone in their native language. Individuals do not even need to speak to activate this service.

A BIG BIC Congrats to the both BIC teams with kudos going to the awesome guidance and support of BIC instructor Jason Stefanik and BIC Creative Track Director Gerardo Blumenkrantz

All finalists will be feted at the Awards Show during Creative Week in May and be included in the prestigious ONE Show Annual as well as online in the Young Ones Awards Archive. Finalists will find out if they’ve been selected to receive the very highest honors of a PENCIL at The Young One Awards ceremony and celebration at West Edge NYC on May 9th. 

As the Academy Award of the advertising industry, just being considered for a Pencil is ALMOST an award in itself. But actually WINNING a Pencil is a life changing honor. Will the BICsters win a Bronze? A Silver? A Gold?!?!? Stay tuned…

Below is a photo of last year's winners.


The LAGRANT Foundation Awards Three BICsters...once again!!

4/17/2017 Anonymous 0 Comments


THREE BICsters have won the prestigious The LAGRANT Foundation (TLF) Scholarship: Charisse Holder, Erica Lopez, and Sean Feol-Baugh.  In a powerhouse showing, they are among just 20 graduate students nationwide to receive a TLF scholarship whose winners share the foundation's mission of increasing ethnic diversity in the advertising, marketing and public relations industries.

This is the fourth year in a row -- in BIC's four year of existence -- that BIC students have been selected to win a highly selective The LAGRANT Foundation Scholarship. Fred Garcia and Amber Jackson, BIC '15, Donna Dei-Baning, BIC '16, Dalisbeth Galvez, Melissa Julien, and Priscilla Parra (BIC '17) received the $5,000 scholarship in 2014, 2015, and 2016 respectively. With the addition of this year's recipients, BIC has now received the most scholarships given to a school/program on the east coast, including NYU, Columbia, and all of CUNY.

Charisse, Erica, and Sean will each receive $3,750 and join students from such prestigious institutions as Harvard, Duke, Northwestern, and New York University.

Prior to enrolling in BIC, Sean Feol-Baugh received a Bachelor's in Media and Communications from the University of the West Indies in 2011. In addition to winning first place in the 2017 CCNY Graduate Symposium, Sean will intern this summer at McCann Erickson as a 4A's MAIP winner. He is also part of a team that has won a 2017 Merit Award in The ONE Club's highly selective Young Ones Competition.  Charisse Holder received her Bachelor's in International Marketing from Baruch College. She received a second place prize in the 2017 CCNY Graduate Symposium. She currently works for Zipcar. Erica Lopez received her Bachelor's in English at SUNY Albany. She is the manager of development at Asphalt Green as well as a freelance journalist.

The LAGRANT Foundation’s 2017 scholarship recipients will be recognized during the 17th Anniversary Scholarship and Donor Recognition Reception in May. This is the first time in its history the Foundation will hold the annual reception in Detroit. Scholarship events will kick off with a welcome dinner followed by two days of career development workshops as well as a scholarship & donor recognition reception. During these activities, students will have the opportunity to meet industry professionals, network, and gain exposure to the advertising, marketing, and public relations world.

Since its inception in 1998, The LAGRANT Foundation (TLF) has provided 372 scholarships and $1.98 million to continue its mission to increase the number of ethnic minorities in the fields of advertising, marketing and public relations. With the generous support of its major donors and supporters, TLF provides students with career & professional development workshops, scholarships, internships, entry-level positions and mentors to African American/Black, Alaska Native/Native American, Asian American/Pacific Islander and Hispanic/Latino undergraduate and graduate students.

BIC's number ONE. Oh, and also number TWO...

4/08/2017 Anonymous 0 Comments


BICsters rocked the Great Hall Thursday night as four teams presented amazing projects at the 2017 CCNY Graduate Symposium.  Sponsored by the Graduate Student Council and now in its tenth year, the symposium is organized like an exhibition fair. Accepted presentations received a display table where grad students from all CCNY divisions pitched their projects to audience members and judges as they roamed the Great Hall.  By night’s end, the winners were announced. In the Humanities and Arts Division, BIC teams earned FIRST and SECOND place finishes. 


First place winners Sean Feol-Baugh, Kacy Charles, Joseph Yoo, and Fidel Frias presented their proposal called “Three to Free,” a one-of-a-kind partnership between five of the world’s largest telecoms companies to help stop human trafficking. Facilitated by Partners Global, the telecoms will roll out the latest generation of emergency call tracking and create a single international emergency call number: 323. The service will automatically direct calls based on the country of origin to local law enforcement with specific location data so that all users may speak to someone in their native language. Individuals do not even need to speak to activate this service.


Second place winner Charisse Holder presented research developed in Belle Frank’s B2000 course that used both quantitative and qualitative data to uncover usage patterns of the professional networking platform LinkedIn among millennials. Charisse found that younger millennials have access to more high tech apps and softwares that directly connect them with employers, making LinkedIn less relevant to them. She developed solutions that included providing a mentorship option, where employers and employees can actually connect. As Charisse concluded, suppliers such as LinkedIn must adapt to the growing needs of the customer rather than expect the consumers to naturally come to them.


A third BIC team made up of Ben Miftari, Marta Mugica Telleria, Namrata Kupte, and Naushi Perera presented their proposal for Foregood. Rather than give money to market research firms for consumer data, Foregood is a service that allows consumer to volunteer their data in exchange for giving money to a charity of their choice.  


Ben was also paired with Enmanual Vargas to present their project to promote gender equality by drawing attention to the pay gap between men and women. Accentuating the 22% difference, they proposed that during publications that relied on the talents of women (i.e., ALL publications) lop off 22% of their product so that consumers literally experience the inequality.  






Deep Dive into Dynamic Content

4/04/2017 Unknown 0 Comments


New technologies and consumer interaction have resulted in a dramatic change in the communications landscape that allows for more dynamic storytelling --  in content, structure, and interconnectivity. Over the course of two weekends, BICsters did a deep dive into what's what and what's coming...


We started on Saturday morning, March 25th, for a quick tutorial on how publishers are creating multi-media platforms and sensory rich environments to deliver information. To demonstrate the power of Marshal McLuhan's statement, "The medium is the message," BIC welcomed Graham Roberts (grahaphics.com), Senior Editor in the Graphics Department of The New York Times who deconstructed one of the Time’s most popular video features “Bieber, Diplo & Skrillex Make a Hit,” as well as shared his most recent projects in Virtual Reality. 

Graham is a 5-time Emmy Awarded nominated Senior Editor at The New York Times, focusing on innovation in visual journalism. He leads a team that explores new approaches in video, motion graphics, virtual/augmented reality, and immersive visual storytelling. He has received recognition for his work from a number of award-giving bodies, including the Society of News Design, the Cooper Hewitt National Design Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Awards and the Pulitzer Awards.

Immediately following, we explored new opportunities in native advertising -- which must authentically mimic the environment in which it's placed. Melanie Deziel (mdeziel.com), Branded Content Consultant, demonstrated new standards and best practices in branded content.  She’s the brains behind the lauded and award-winning "Women Inmates: Separate But Not Equal" by The New York Times TBrand Studio for Netflix.


Melanie is the founder of The Overlap League native ad newsletter and on the board of the Native Advertising Institute. She has done branded content strategy work for Time Inc's 35+ US magazines, the Huffington Post, and many other media companies, and worked as an Expert in Residence with BRaVe Ventures, where she offered content strategy consulting, training and advisory to Turner, Viacom, and other major media companies.



After lunch, we explored how the structure and content of storytelling changes from platform to platform with an amazing presentation from Gustavo Quintero, Senior Strategist, at Y&R. Gustavo spoke about the need to integrate different practices and ways of thinking in order to lead to the best work/content. A graduate of the University of Tennessee’s Advertising program, Gustavo started in data and analytics and shifted into brand planning with a focus on digital/social content. Currently at Y&R, he’s worked primarily across tech and finance space. His clients include Dell, JPMorgan Chase, Pfizer, optimum cable, and the ad council (digital literacy). 


We wrapped up the day talking about the future with Adriana Krasniansky, Senior Strategist at PSFK who presented the latest immersive and digital tools from PSFK’s Future of Advertising Report.  PSFK is the world's leading provider of innovation insights. Since 2004, it's offered the tools, content, and advice to inspire creative professionals to make better products, services, and experiences.  


By examining a new class of immersive and interactive digital tools, PSFK’s Future of Advertising report presents strategies that evolve the concept of digital advertising into seamless engagement between person and brand. With traditional advertising formats such as print, TV spots and web banners losing their impact and relevance, organizations must reframe their narrative to complement, or interact with, consumers' lives. 


Adriana is PSFK's senior strategist, working with advertising and retail brands to forecast future consumer behaviors and prepare next-generation business strategies. She has led trends research, concept development and prototyping for Coca-Cola, Google Fiber, Nike+ and Verizon. She is also the author of PSFK’s Future of Advertising Report, Future of Work Report, and Forecast 2020.


On Friday evening, March 31st, BICsters went to Facebook's New York Headquarters to explore how to build innovative creative in mobile feeds with Neisha Tweed, Creative Strategist at Facebook, who works with global brands and advertising agencies. Over the last 10 years Neisha has accumulated a huge trunk-load of awards for her copywriting and creative work at a number of ad agencies including Mcgarrybowen, Publicis Kaplan Thaler, GlobalHue and Ogilvy & Mather. She also taught writing at the Miami Ad School for 3 years.


After a dynamic presentation, BICsters had a fifteen minute work session where they had to use one of Facebook's latest apps such as Boomerang, Canvas, and FB Live to create a commercial for Mentos mints. Then they raided Facebook's kitchen and wrote on its wall...


Back on campus again Saturday morning, April, 1st, we explored the most dynamic content of all: immersive experiential campaigns that use multiple platforms in a synergistic, story-building way. Lukas Derksen, Managing Partner of Sid Lee, took us through some of Sid Lee's award-winning campaigns from Stella Artois to Northface.  


Entrepreneurial and highly motivated, Lukas excels in finding creative business solutions, managing large-scale teams, business development, business strategies, communications and art direction with special interests in sports, design, lifestyle, fashion, entertainment and technology. Throughout his career, he has worked for many globally loved brands such as adidas, Absolut, Cirque du Soleil, Dom Perignon, Intel and facebook. As Managing Director & Partner of the transformative creative agency, Sid Lee, Lukas helped establish its New York City Office. Founded in 1992, Sid Lee calls itself The Agency Built for the Experience Economy. 


On Saturday afternoon, BICsters got to work to create dynamic campaigns of their own. For the last three hours of the course, BICsters work in four teams to create a multi-media campaign on behalf of either Planned Parenthood, Pantone, Live Sport, or Anti-Fetanyl. They were instructed to include four dynamic, synergistic platforms and make a visual presentations of their work. The judges Nancy Tag, Gerardo Blumenkrantz, Nick Scordato, and Omar Kardoudi were deadlocked in their decision and announced a four way tie vote at the end of the session (seriously -- no April Fool's joke).