This year’s GWA junior agency day took place on 2nd February at the University of Düsseldorf. The team from DHBW Ravensburg, which consisted of students from the media design and international business courses, was convincing in all categories and scooped up all of the evening’s main prizes. Alongside the Gold award bestowed by an expert jury, the DHBW Ravensburg team also won the audience award and the prize for the best “making of video”.

The GWA Junior Agency Award is a renowned youth competition in Germany run by the Association of German Advertising Agencies (GWA), which represents the leading agencies in Germany.

Gold award, audience award and award for the best “making of video”

Marketing and design students are set the task of creating a PR strategy marketing solution and then outlining their campaign to the jury and audience in a 25 minute presentation. At this year’s competition there were 8 teams from universities all over Germany taking part. Each team was partnered with a professional advertising strategy PR agency to create a campaign for a genuine client.

Image campaign for the “young” Black Forest tourist industry

With support from the qu-int media agency in Freiburg, our group of students from DHBW Ravensburg designed a campaign for the client, Schwarzwald Tourismus GmbH (the Black Forest Tourism Board). While the students from the media design course were responsible for the creative and artistic side of the campaign, the international business studies students dealt with strategic planning and implementation. So at the end of a long semester, and having discarded plenty of ideas along the way, the campaign “Finally something for young people” was created, with the goal of raising awareness of the Black Forest tourist region among young people under the age of 35 and inspiring them to take a holiday there.

In the end our concept not only convinced and delighted the audience at the GWA junior agency day; it also won the votes of the expert jury which was largely made up of agency managers, corporate marketing experts, university lecturers and journalists.

We are particularly delighted that our client, Schwarzwald Tourismus GmbH, has already let us know they will actually be implementing some of our ideas in order to attract more young people to the Black Forest.

Author: Artur Schmal

On 12th and 20th January 2018, the Handtmann football team competed in the annual football tournaments run by the Weishaupt company and the Ulm/Biberach police department.

During the first tournament at Weishaupt we began in good form and after a 2:2 draw against the team from the company Diehl Aircabin and two 1:0 victories against teams from the companies Weishaupt and Bek, we came top of our group and qualified for the semi-finals. There we faced our long-time bogey team, the Ulm police department. Unfortunately, we were unable to build on the great results from the group phase and in the semi-final, we lost easily with a final score of 6:1. In the subsequent third place play-off we had to admit defeat once again, going down 5:2 to the Südpack team. So ultimately, we were “only” able to clinch 4th place. Just like last year, the indoor tournament winners in Schwendi were the team from the Ulm police department.

The “Handtmen” get semi-final tickets

On 20th January we started the tournament at Biberach police department with a slightly modified team. After a 3:1 defeat to Liebherr Components, the Handtmann players finally got themselves really going and made great strides towards semi-final qualification with a 5:0 victory against Liebherr Werk and a 7:0 triumph over DRK. In the fourth group game the team from Handtmann Group of Companies achieved their own personal mini victory: for the first time in the history of the indoor company tournament the Handtmann team emerged victorious against the police footballers from Ulm - with a 1:0 victory sealed in the final seconds. A place in the semi-finals was as good as guaranteed, but the Handtmann team managed to make things tense again with a 4:0 defeat to Diehl and a 4:1 defeat to the subsequent tournament winners, the Biberach Police Academy. Tickets to the semi-final were eventually confirmed in the last game, with a 2:1 win over the Boehringer Ingelheim team. In the semi-final we had a second encounter with the footballers from Liebherr Components who had gone on to become group winners. Initially we were able to hold our own pretty successfully but ultimately, as in the group phase, we succumbed to a 3:1 defeat. Unfortunately, we also lost the match for third place, going down 2:4 to Diehl Aircabin, just as in the previous week.

Fans travel to support

On behalf of the Handtmann football team I would like to thank company management at the Handtmann Group of Companies for enabling us to be involved in these kinds of tournaments every year. I must also say a massive thank you to the players, who were exemplary representatives for Handtmann at all times, both on and off the pitch. It is not always easy to find 12 players to give up their leisure time to represent the Handtmann Group of Companies and celebrate successes together. This year we were thrilled to have a little fan club attend the police tournament in Biberach. – Maybe next time, with some more fans in attendance, we can overcome our semi-final curse!?!

Sporting greetings,

Noah Gnandt