A total of 7,689 readers took part in this year“s election of the "Lürzer's Archive Stu- dent of the Year 2009." After considering the 5 top-ranking student ads, a jury con- sisting of Menno Kluin (Art Director, Y&R, New York), John LaMacchia (Art Director, Ogilvy, New York) and our editor-in-chief, Michael Weinzettl, finally awarded the prize to Juri Zaech (art) and David Aronson (copy) for their Kodak ad ("You don“t have to understand much to take great pictures").

The former students of the Miami Ad School Europe, Hamburg, who hail from Switzerland and Sweden respectively and are now employed with Ogilvy, Paris, explain their concept as follows:

"Maybe the inspiration for the campaign came from the fact that we were interning in Paris and didn't speak French. The hardest and funniest thing was to come up with the details in the ads. You would think that coming up with stuff that doesn't make any sense would be easy but it was surprisingly hard."

The Kodak ad garnered comments such as: “Fun & appealing use of retro style. (…) Hero product & branding register well!” “Yay David and Juri! Vroom vroom pathy stahta!!” Or simply “LOVE LOVE LOVE their idea!”

The winning certificate and an individually produced “Student of the Year Six-Pack” will be presented during the Golden Drum Awards, Eastern Europe“s most influential advertising festival, taking place in Portoroz, Slovenia, before an international audience.
The runners-up were: María Sequeiros and Mario Fer- nández from Miami Ad School Europe, Madrid with their iPod Shuffle campaign; Sungkwon Ha from School of Visual Arts, New York with his Doritos Nachos campaign.

Over the past twelve-month period, from mid-2008 to mid-2009, a total of 940 submissions were received from universities and schools from all over the world. Of these, 34 were nominated for the “Lürzer“s Archive International Students Award” and featured in the “Students Contest” category in issues 4/08 to 3/09.

First established in 2004, the Award provides students of advertising and communications design with a high-profile platform for their work. A number of our readers – among them leading advertising industry figures – originally encouraged us to establish a competition for new and up-and-coming advertising talents.

The very first “Student of the Year,” Menno Kluin, has since launched a highly successful career at Saatchi & Saatchi New York and Y&R New York, and has already won a clutch of Gold Lions in Cannes.

If you are interested in submitting work, send an email to submission@luerzersarchive.com. You will receive a login and a password to our website, enabling you to upload your entry. Up to 12 images may be entered! Submission is free of charge!