For five decades, Boston University’s AdLab course has given students the opportunity to gain experience in a full-service advertising agency setting.
Founded in 1974 by professors Walter Lubars and Bob Montgomery, AdLab is the largest student-run advertising agency in the country — and this year it is celebrating its 50 year anniversary.
“[AdLab] is an important part of the ad program at the College of Communication,” said Tobe Berkovitz, professor of advertising emeritus and a former advisor of AdLab. “Not every student who takes an advertising program has the opportunity to be part of what’s a really professionally-oriented agency.”
AdLab is open to all students, including graduate students, as long as they have completed Introduction to Advertising. In its more recent years, AdLab’s clients include Chobani, ASICS, YMCA and more.
Students in AdLab carry out every function of a professional advertising campaign from beginning to end, said Shawn Zupp, a professor of the practice of advertising and one of two AdLab faculty advisors.
The process begins with business development, in which a new business team works to secure the clients AdLab will collaborate with throughout the semester. Then, members of each team take on individual roles to carry out brand research, advertising strategy, creative execution and production of the final product.
“We like to say that AdLab never sleeps,” said Chris Lee, a senior lecturer of advertising and AdLab’s other faculty advisor.
This semester, AdLab is collaborating with 15 different clients, each of whom pay $500 for a semester’s worth of work. After a round of interviews, students are placed into client teams of seven to nine members.
At the end of the semester, each team presents a creative campaign and a research report for its client, said Sarah Gazitt, the executive vice president of AdLab and a senior.
This semester, AdLab is partnering with widely-known clients, like National Geographic and Capital One, as well as smaller clients, including Banned Berry, a non-alcoholic beverage startup, and Our Stomping Ground, a non-profit dedicated to building inclusive communities.
“What we love about AdLab is how diverse our client list is,” said Abby Guttman, president of AdLab and a senior.
As the world changes, AdLab changes along with it, Lee said.
AdLab also recently introduced a video production department, which opened its doors to Film & Television students within COM this fall.
“What AdLab has created over its decades has changed tremendously and changed over time, as you’d expect, as mediums have changed,” Zupp, who graduated from COM in 1995 said.
When AdLab was founded in the 1970s, students focused on producing print advertising, like fliers and posters. In the 1990s, the focus shifted to television commercials. When smartphones were introduced in the early 2000s, students created mobile advertisements and text-messaging campaigns.
With the rise of social media, short-form video content became e a high demand deliverable for advertisers to produce, Lee said.
“There is an incredible alumni network and there’s a real pay-it-forward attitude to professionals in the ad industry who were AdLab students,” said Berkovitz,.
Every semester, AdLab hosts alumni speakers that allow previous AdLab students to share the knowledge they gained while working in the industry, said Gazitt.
AdLab recently hosted 2021 COM alum Ariana Revelas, a senior account executive at Mischief, a creative advertising agency based in New York that produced campaigns for companies like Pizza Hut, Goldfish and Tinder.
Revelas said her semester participating in AdLab as a graduate student was valuable in guiding her toward her current career.
“Internships are important,” Revelas said. “But AdLab created a really safe environment where we could ask questions and have support from professors and other AdLab leadership.”
Nihal Atawane, who graduated from COM in 2019 and is now a senior copywriter at the advertising agency FCB Chicago, said his experience in AdLab taught him how to adapt and work efficiently in an ever-changing working environment.
In contrast to the theory-based instruction of academic advertising courses, AdLab provided students with the fast pace and quick turnarounds that comes with the professional advertising world, said Atawane.
“I treat AdLab as if I’m getting paid a full salary,” Gazitt said. “It feels like having a full-time job and really being the president of a real agency.”
