AdGrads Attend NCA 108th Annual Convention
Last weekend, the National Communication Association hosted their 108th Annual Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana. Thousands of scholars gathered to present their research and connect with others from universities around the country. Among the attendees were three of our very own Advertising Graduate Students, Yifan Feng, Jana Landers and Madison Phelan.
In 2021, Feng, Landers, Phelan and Andrew Griffiths, co-authored a research paper titled More Money, More Nostalgia? Their research aimed to identify motivational factors for buying vintage items and factors that could increase bargaining prices. Through a successful survey and experiment, their research found a significant correlation between higher bargaining prices and narrative instagram captions. They concluded that using captions that provoke nostalgia for a customer can increase the likelihood of purchase and for higher prices.
“It was so amazing to present research from what started as a class project for Dr. Oh’s class”, said Phelan. “Without her guidance and support, I’m not sure we would have made it to the conference, but we did!“ Madison is a second year Advertising graduate student in the Texas Immersive Institute. she hopes to go into project management or experience design after graduation.
Yifan Feng is a second year graduate student in the general advertising track and she said, “Many Scholars asked if we considered extending our research and immediately associated our findings to some other paper done by their colleagues.” Feng hopes to continue working at her current company in Shanghai and hopes to transition to their creative department after graduation. She said, “It also felt good to stand in the line of a coffee shop with 20 other scholar strangers with the same name tag on.”
“It was an honor to represent the University of Texas at the NCA convention. I’m so grateful to Yifan, Madison and Andy for their hard work on this paper.” Jana Landers is a second year graduate student in P3 of the Texas Creative Program. She hopes to begin her career in advertising as an Art Director at an agency in NYC. She said, “First to get accepted, then to attend the conference in person - it all felt very surreal.”
“Even though I couldn’t be there, it is great to see our hard work pay off,” said Andy Griffiths. Andy is currently in both Texas Creative and the Immersive Institute. He is from the U.K. and hopes to bring his experience back to the U.K after graduation.
We are very proud of this group of young scholars and can’t wait to see where life takes them after graduation in May 2023.
