Texas Creatives Score Big at Young Guns of the Year Award

Four years ago, advertising powerhouse TBWA/Chiat/Day brought art director Jeff Anderson to Manhattan from the highly-acclaimed Texas Creative program within the Texas Advertising and PR department.

Today, Anderson and his copywriter partner Isaac Silverglate sit atop a gleaming pile of international advertising awards for their Combos "What Your Mom Would Feed You--If Your Mom Were A Man" campaign. Anderson noted, "Every time I sat down to write a script I thought about my dad, and how my dad would be if he was also my mom."

That pile now includes the juried "Young Guns of the Year" award for the top international creative team under 30, as well as a check for $20,000.

The runner-up team included another Texas Creative art director grad who landed at TBWA/Chiat/Day NY. Longhorn Craig Allen, along with partner Eric Kallman, took second-place honors for their Skittles work.

The ongoing humorous campaigns that Anderson and Allen create for Combos, Skittles, Snickers, and other Masterfoods Brands have won every major advertising award on the planet.

According to Advertising Age's Creativity, a trade magazine, in 2007 the Skittles and Combos work ranked as the top two award-winning campaigns worldwide. Anderson and Allen were both ranked in the top 5 award-winning art directors of any age.

This helped their creative directors and their worldwide agency network also top the global awards lists for the year.

Housed within the University of Texas' Department of Advertising and PR, Texas Creative is one of the leading creative advertising education programs on the planet. Rooted in sound strategy and conceptual process, Texas Creative molds students into fearless experimental thinkers who are primed to create innovative advertising, branding, and social messages that are delivered through a variety of integrated traditional and nontraditional media.

12/14/2007