• by Carrie Cummings , March 28, 2012

Alesha Taylor and Ralexis Castro, students at New York’s High School for Innovation in Advertising and Media, presented their integrated media campaign for Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative at the first annual TEDxHarlem conference.

They worked with a team of 22 other students to create the campaign with TV, Web, print and mobile components. Each ad targeted teenagers in order to promote exercise.

The 4As and the Advertising Club of New York were responsible for helping bring the students and their work to the larger New York City community.

“We were entered into a competition in the early fall where we were asked to make a print campaign for Let’s Move! Then someone from the TEDx organization asked us to expand on that concept,” explains Taylor.

The students worked together as a unified team, each member with their own role.

“We had a whole big creative discussion with the production class,” recalls Castro, “and we tried to figure out the best way to approach the market. What [corresponds to] the brief the most? What [teenagers] actually want.”

They concluded that the teen demographic would best relate to a videogame. The print campaign, the first part of the project, plays on Nintendo’s Wii Live graphics with the tagline “Life Live.” When the students moved forward with the integrated campaign, they took the gaming ideas with them.

Taylor and Castro presented their campaign commercial at TEDxHarlem to a large audience, explaining the concepts and drive behind the campaign.

As for their future in advertising, both know what they want. “I’m really interested in the stuff R/GA does because they’re very digital, and they did the Nike Plus campaign,” says Taylor. Castro wouldn’t turn down offers from Euro RSCG or Google Creative Lab.