A group of students from the University of Chester’s Advertising programme have beaten significant competition from across the world to win a prestigious D&AD Yellow Pencil Award – the design and advertising industry’s version of the Oscars – for their outstanding creativity.

Will Bollen, Jerry Clark, Christine King, Muna Mohammed and Sharleen Smyth were the only UK nomination in the Integrated Advertising category of the Awards, rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s leading advertising schools to claim a Yellow Pencil at a glitzy ceremony at King’s Place, London.

Their success is testimony to the quality of work they produced for Blyk Mobile, which involved creating an integrated advertising campaign to demonstrate the marketing power of the mobile phone. Their campaign involved the production of a viral video, website, and use of social network sites, such as Facebook.

More than 3,000 entries from 1,000 colleges and universities around the world made submissions for the Awards, which for 31 years have been the launch pad for some of the Advertising industry’s biggest names.

Kate Sillitoe, Senior Lecturer in Advertising and module leader, said: “The work produced by the students in response to Blyk’s brief was of an exceptionally high standard, and this success is richly deserved. The students were up against extremely strong competition from the best advertising and design students in the world, and this win puts them and the Advertising programme at the University of Chester in the highest category.”

David Rutherford, Programme Leader for Advertising, added: “My sincere congratulations go to all five students on this fantastic achievement. As the only UK nominee in this category, and in the face of competition from throughout the world, this is a significant coup.”

D&AD is an educational charity that represents the global creative, design and advertising communities. Since 1962, it has set industry standards, educated and inspired creatives and designers at all levels, and identified the best new creative talent to the industry.

Greg Quinton, the D&AD Education Chairman, said: “The Student Awards’ work was judged with the professional awards this year, and it was difficult to tell the two apart – a testament to the quality of the work submitted. The creative standard has been simply brilliant this year.”

For more information about the University’s Advertising programme, contact Kate Sillitoe by calling 01925 534657 or email k.sillitoe@chester.ac.uk