UA’s APR Department to Host ‘Curiously Strong’ Speaker

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Steffan Postaer, best known for his creative work on the “Curiously Strong Mints” campaign for Altoids, is the keynote speaker at Advertising Day 2011, an Oct. 13 event hosted by The University of Alabama’s advertising and public relations department.

“The entire day is filled with sessions in which leading advertising professionals share their experience and expertise and interact with UA students, and we have a wonderful group of speakers visiting this year,” said Dr. Joseph Phelps, chair of the advertising and public relations department.

Postaer is the former chairman and chief executive officer of one of the world’s largest advertising agencies, Euro RSCG Worldwide Chicago, whose clients include Citi, Sprint, Barilla, Potbelly, Effen Vodka and more.

He is the recipient of advertising’s most prestigious awards, including a Kelly award and gold and silver awards at competitions including The One Show, the ADDYs and the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, which awarded Postaer a Gold Lion in 1988.

The event will also feature Janet Kestin and Nancy Vonk, the creatives behind Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty,” live via Skype. Visiting campus from the New York offices of J. Walter Thompson is Nancy Jaffe, group planning director, and from mcgarrybowen in New York is UA alumnus and associate creative director, Michael Cannova.

The featured speakers also include Mary-Margaret Slaton Brown, media buyer/planner for Lewis Communications in Birmingham; Jenny Rankin, project manager for Kinetic Communications in Birmingham; John Gardner, president/CEO of Integrative Logic in Lawrenceville, Ga.; Libby Sexton Romano, senior account executive for Big Communications in Birmingham; Melissa George, senior account executive for Clear Channel in Tuscaloosa; Regina Lewis, visiting professor in the APR department; Rich Sullivan, president/executive creative director for Red Square Agency in Mobile; and career advisers from the Tuscaloosa/Birmingham area also will be on-hand to speak with students.

For a detailed schedule of events, visit http://apr.ua.edu.

The department of advertising and public relations is a part of the University’s College of Communication and Information Sciences.