BICster Chris Villanueva Makes 4As 100

8/20/2017 Unknown 0 Comments


We're incredibly proud to announce that Chris Villanueva (BIC '15) has been selected as one of 4A's Advertising 100. This is a HUGE honor -- the full announcement broke in the July 24th Adweek. Before entering BIC to study in the creative track, Chris was an account executive at Y&R. After a summer MAIP gig at TBWA Chiat/Day, he was hired there as a junior copywriter the year before graduating. He's currently a copywriter at DigitasLBi working on American Express, T-Mobile and Whole Foods. Chris also teaches copywriting to undergraduates at his alma mater City College. 
ABOUT THIS HONOR: To mark its 100th anniversary, the 4A’s this year will honor 100 individuals who are making extraordinary contributions to advertising — the leaders and the rising stars, from all disciplines, including creative, account management, media, strategy, research and technology.

Congrats also to two BIC Board Members who made the list: David Sable, Global CEO of Y&R and Rob Norman, Chief Digital Officer and Chairman of GroupM North America. 

AD Club's i'mPART Fellowship Program Picks BIC's Carol Burns

8/20/2017 Unknown 0 Comments

BIG BIC CONGRATS to Carol Burns (BIC '15 and Corporate Concierge at Samsung USA) for being selected to this year’s AD Club i’mPART Fellowship Program. Her name was announced along with 11 other women on Thursday, July 13, 2017 at the Harold Pratt House – during the 2nd Annual Women’s Master Class.

Carol joins this elite group of women whose lives and careers will be enhanced by the AD Club's efforts that will provide funding their travel and registration to high level industry conferences, exclusive training and professional development courses facilitated by PWC each month, and executive lunch and learns with some of the industries top thought leaders.Amber Lynn Jackson was a member of the Fellowship's inaugural winners last year. Along with Amber, Carol is a member of BIC's inaugural class. 

The AD Club’s i’mPART initiative is to raise awareness of the benefits of diversity in business and rally professionals around a shared movement. i’mPART calls to mind “I am part” of a movement to drive change in my industry. The acronym represents the pillars of the initiative – to Promote, Attract, Retain and Train multicultural talent.
SUPER psyched, Carol, for your journey ahead...

ADCOLOR FUTURES is brighter than ever!

8/20/2017 Unknown 0 Comments


Super proud to give a Big BIC Congrats to Melissa Julien '17 who is now a member of the class of 2017 ADCOLOR FUTURES!!
As a select member of the best and brightest professionals who are 1-3 years into their career, Melissa will be attending the annual conference and awards show which will take place September 19th, 2017 in Los Angeles at The Loews Hollywood Hotel.
ADCOLOR is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to celebrate and champion diversity in the advertising, marketing, media, PR and entertainment industries. Its aim is to help individuals and organizations RISE UP, letting their accomplishments and ideas shine, then teach these new leaders and would-be-mentors how to REACH BACK and find others who deserve to be noticed and promoted. The goal of ADCOLOR is to create a community of diverse professionals who are here to support and celebrate one another.
The announcement took place at the Facebook Live Studios and was hosted by author and 2016 ADCOLOR Rockstar Honoree Luvvie Ajayi, ADCOLOR Founder and President Tiffany R. Warren, Edelman NY Head of Public Affairs and 2015 ADCOLOR Advocate Honoree Brian Ellner, DIAGEO's Vice President of Corporate Relations, Constituent Affairs and ADCOLOR Chairman of the board Marc Strachan and Senior Strategic Planner, TBWA\Chiat\Day and 2016 ADCOLOR FUTURE William Yu.
A graduate of CCNY's Ad/PR Program, Melissa Julien is our third BICster to win this honor. Stephanie Cruz Betances and Amber Lynn Jackson have also been members of this selective program.
To see all the winners, go http://adcolor.org/futures/

Mad Ave Manslaughter selected National Indie Excellence Book Awards

8/20/2017 Unknown 0 Comments

Beating out 1000 entries, Michael Farmer's Madison Avenue Manslaughter won the 2017 National Indie Excellence Book Awards in the Marketing category. 

Now required reading in BIC and across the industry, Mad Avenue Manslaughter tells truth to power as an inside view of "fee-cutting clients, profit-hungry owners, and declining ad agencies."

BIC Professor Michael Farmer is Chairman and CEO of Farmer & Company, a consulting firm that advises advertising agencies. Prior to founding his own company, Professor Farmer was a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and Director of Bain & Company. With degrees from Princeton and Harvard, he brings vast expertise into the classroom and advises on the BIC curriculum.

What Did You Do This Summer? One Intensive Weekend for Two BICsters @ BBH Bootcamp

8/20/2017 Unknown 0 Comments


Once again, BICsters scored coveted slots in the highly competitive Griffin Farley Beautiful Minds Program. This summer’s participants were Iara Carmona ’18 and Keishel Williams ’19.

Created by BBH to honor Strategic Planner Griffin Farley, The Beautiful Minds program (GFBM) is a hybrid planning bootcamp and networking event. Participants in this highly selective program get a free crash course in planning from some of the top planners in the industry. 

This year’s brief was on behalf of Be My Eyes, an app that helps visually impaired people "to see." It connects blind people with volunteers around the world in a one-way video chat so they can get help with simple daily chores, such as finding out the expiration date on product labels or choosing the right color of socks.

Iara recapped the intensive long weekend as an opportunity for students and professionals to come together in teams to “create a campaign and communication strategy to increase US blind user numbers by 5 in 6 months. It was a BIG challenge to create a campaign with little to no visual elements. On top of that, we had to work with a group of people we had just met with only 24 hours to do the whole thing.”

Experiencing the planning process is not the only point of the 3-day intensive. Keishel explains that “as part of the bootcamp program, we were given tours of a few great agencies here in New York. While at Ogilvy, I specifically requested to speak with members of the Creative department while my fellow Planners spoke with the Planning team. I was introduced to a Senior Art Director and Senior Copywriter and was able to parley that brief meeting into some informal training under the Senior Copywriter.” 

As Iara summed up: “It was one of the most intense work experiences of my life. Very stressful but very rewarding at the same time.”

Gotta Get it Done? Consider a Caveday

8/20/2017 Unknown 0 Comments



BIC Creative Professor Jake Kahana runs an event (or kinda "pop-up" co-op workspace) called Caveday which teaches better productivity habits and then puts them into practice for a full day of deep work. If you've got a big project you've been putting off (updating your website, job searching, clearing your inbox, planning your wedding, etc etc), you're the target. 

As a highly productive person himself, Jake helped developed Caveday as a day of heads-down, facilitated, distraction-free productivity so you can treat yourself to prioritize YOU and getting your personal work done. Written up in Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, and PSFK, Cavedays help you learn how to focus better, ship faster, and accomplish more than you thought you could.

According to Fast Company, "Getting stuff done with no distractions is a challenge many fail to overcome on their own, especially when it comes to passion projects. There’s no shortage of reasons (or excuses) why—work got really busy, you had to travel for that wedding, your cat got sick, Veep started up again—and before long, you realize you’ve been procrastinating on that one thing you’ve really been meaning to do, whether it’s finally drawing up that business plan or banging out the next chapter of that novel. It’s long put-off solo projects like these that Caveday’s organizers seem to believe are best tackled together.”

SO: Finish that screenplay. Clean your inbox. Write thank you cards.  Map out a business idea. Make a plan and then join us to start crossing things off.  Organizers provide you with structure to keep you engaged all day without distractions, tools to push through resistance and ship faster, tasty meals, snacks, and caffeine… Thanks, Jake! We couldn't have done it without Caveday.

BIC in the ONE Club's Top Ten

8/16/2017 Unknown 0 Comments


The One Club for Creativity has officially ranked the top schools in the world based on how many Young One winning entries they received in 2017. After receiving a GOLD Pencil as well as a Merit Award in this year's student competition, City College's Branding + Integrated Communications (BIC) MPS Program came in #7 in a field that included veteran programs such as School of Visual Arts, Berghs School of Communication, and Miami Ad School. This showing is particularly impressive given that the BIC program launched just four years ago and has only submitted entries since 2015. BIC students also won a GOLD Pencil in last year's competition.