Kim Karalekas

I always seem to be talking about AHA and NVC, but I don’t think I have done a great job explaining these crazy acronyms.  

AHA stands for Allen Hall Advertising. AHA is not pronounced as A.H.A…it’s AHA! As in…Eureka!  We are a student run “ad” agency…or communications agency…or how about idea agency?  We have three accounts, UO Sustainability, Talk, and NVC.

NVC is an international MBA business plan competition hosted by the UO Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship.  Through a generous endowment from Tim Boyle/Columbia Sportswear, the AHA NVC account runs the branding and communications campaign.

This year…Kristin and I are co-managing the account – Kristin as the “external liaison,” serving as the Account Coordinator and myself as the “internal liaison,” serving as the Account Planner/Strategist.  It’s been quite the journey with a steep learning curve, plenty of trials, tribulations, sleepless nights, overflowing email inboxes and of course F.U.N. FUN. (=

So without further adieu, I thought it might be fun to show a little of a day in the life of AHA and NVC:

One of our first meetings back in Sept. – we began to brainstorm for our campaign by drawing.  Thinking abstractly of a business plan competition is actually quite helpful. 

If NVC was a mode of transit, what would it be?

Our team conducted about 30 in person interviews as well as data from an online survey.  This is during an interview Anna and I gave:

Team bonding is very important for good work:

Working on the press kit at 3 am is a must: 

Again, a solid team comprises people you would want to see outside of work!

Last week AHA brainstormed past failures and successes of AHA accounts…and how we can use these as learning experiences:

here’s one of the successes – Sustainability’s garbage monsters as a UO campus awareness piece:

Here’s another success – from last year’s NVC team – the NVC idea elevator which also served to raise awareness at UO:

ah, watching the NVC magic happen:

hhmm sometimes odd things turn up around the j. school; however, that’s what keeps things…interesting…and to be interesting we have to be interested, right?

Our team, as drawn by Evan: