Liberty advertising team finishes runner-up in national competition for best NFL campaign

Competing against 103 collegiate teams from around the nation, Liberty University’s Advertising Team brought home a second-place finish in the 2026 National Student Advertising Competition, announced at the American Advertising Federation’s annual ADMERICA conference on May 28–31 in Austin, Texas.

Last fall, all teams were challenged with developing a campaign pitch for this year’s client, the National Football League, that would increase awareness and involvement for the league’s youth health and wellness initiatives. Students conducted research and defined their targeted audiences in the fall and spent the spring handling the graphic design, copywriting, budgeting, and overall cohesion of their pitch.

The eight finalists were invited to the conference. Liberty finished behind University of Oregon and ahead of Texas State University, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, University of Kansas, Western Kentucky University, University of California-San Diego, and University of Texas at Austin. Oregon will now have the opportunity to work directly with the NFL’s marketing team to bring their ideas to fruition.

This year’s team of 35 students, all from various academic programs in the School of Communication & the Arts, was the largest group in team history. Liberty has recorded multiple top three finishes over the years, including a first-place win in 2023 and second place in 2019 and 2022.

“The Ad Team is the best and closest thing to a real-world agency marketing environment that you can get as a student,” faculty advisor Sawyer VeStrand said. “You have deliverables, you have deadlines, and you’re doing it to address a real problem that a real company is having. The students are working alongside other people on the team, and it’s great to practice that group dynamic while also making sure that they’re on top of their own personal tasks.”

In addition to exercising their industry-level skills among their peers at other colleges, Liberty’s team also strives to compete for the ultimate glory of God, to represent the Lord and Liberty well, Vestrand said.

“With us, it’s all about having the work we do be honoring to God and making it the best work we can produce,” he said. “How does our work reflect God? How does our conduct with these other schools reflect Him? My goal with the Ad Team is, while we want to win, the bigger thing is for it to be a fun experience for the students where they can learn about advertising.”

Brightly Echegoyen (’26), who participated in Ad Team competitions for three years and served as a graduate student assistant for this year’s team, said the experience was her “most life-changing part of college.” She graduated in May with her master’s in strategic communication and said being on the advertising team has given her a tremendous respect and understanding for the industry she is entering.

“(This competition) was a big challenge because we were working with big clients and the professors expect us to produce work like we were a well-oiled machine and a well-running advertising agency,” she said. “It taught me so much about how much work it takes and everything that goes into making an ad campaign. It gave me a lot more respect for the industry.”

“The tone that (VeStrand) set was the reason that we went to nationals,” she added, “because he was such a good anchor, and he reminded all of us to really make sure that we’re focusing on doing everything for the Lord, not doing it just for the sake of winning.”