Bayville Woman's Creativity Wins $10K In Kia Ad Contest

BERKELEY, NJ — Like most college seniors, Courtney Bott's days are a whirlwind of classes, working to pay her tuition and bills, and interviews for her first post-college job.

This week, her resume got a nice boost: Bott was named the winner of Kia's Driving Creativity national advertising design contest, hosted by Ad Age Studio 30. The prize includes $10,000 for her tuition, a profile in Ad Age, a globally known marketing publication, and a paid trip to Cannes, France, for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Bott was one of six finalists in the contest, in which entrants had to design an ad for the Kia Stinger, the automaker's newest sports sedan that it touts as comparable to the Audi A5 Sportback, the BMW Gran Coupe and the Lexus GS 300.

"My teacher told us about it with only a week to enter," said Bott, who is studying advertising design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. "Only a few of my classmates entered."

Once she was chosen among the finalists, it was six weeks of waiting and encouraging people to vote on the Kia Driving Creativity website. The announcement Tuesday was a happy surprise, and a reward for hard work and passion that started when she was young.

"In high school I took every art class possible," said Bott, a 2014 graduate of Central Regional High School, "from fine arts like drawing and painting to graphic design and CAD (computer-assisted design)."

After high school she headed to Ocean County College to study liberal arts. Soon she realized she missed having a creative outlet. "So I took a ceramics class," she said. It ignited her desire to pursue a career in the arts.

"I then applied to FIT as a transfer student," Bott said. The programs at the school are very competitive, but she was accepted as a communication design student. She finished the two-year program in visual communications program a year later and applied to the advertising design program. Just 24 students are accepted each year. "I had to be interviewed to make it into the major. Now I am about to graduate in spring."

It's an achievement to be proud of, but winning the Kia ad contest — Bott's ad will be displayed as part of Kia's advertising campaign — is a dream finish to her senior year. Ad Age, which has been around since 1930, reaches 58,000 print subscribers and has more than 4.2 million page views per month — a heady amount of exposure for someone seeking a job after graduation. She hopes to become an art director in the future.

The trip to Cannes, France, will be her first trip outside the United States. And the Fashion Institute of Technology wil receive a $5,000 prize for being the winner's school.

The Cannes website said the Festival of Creativity, held in June, "has been bringing the creative communications industry together every year at its one-of-a-kind event in Cannes to learn, network and celebrate."

"I am feeling so so so grateful," Bott said in a post on Facebook after learning she had won. "Thank you so much to my friends, family, and even strangers who helped me, voted, and shared. It means the world to me. Thank you Mom!! Were going to France baby!"

Her winning ad can be seen here.

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Photo by Shelby Grimac, published with permission