October 7, 2026
The Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising hosted the Sandage Symposium on Sept. 18, 2026, bringing together industry experts, researchers, alumni, and students who are shaping the future of advertising. The event featured panel discussions on the future of advertising and networking opportunities for students, alumni, and faculty.
Keynote: “Advertising as the Invited Guest Who Took Over the Party”
Judy Ungar Franks, former agency executive, professor at Northwestern University Medill School, and author of Media: From Chaos to Clarity and Back Again, was the keynote speaker at this year’s symposium. Her address “Advertising as the Invited Guest Who Took Over the Party” explored the relationship between advertising and the consumer. She emphasized the need to be aware of what ad avoidance feels like to consumers and shared new ways of tackling the problem, such as changing the mindset around who is truly the client when advertising.
Through her own experiences, she discovered that the client is not the brand that hired you, but the consumer who will see the messaging. Her five key points include:
- The real “client” is the consumer, not the advertiser.
- Advertising is an “invited guest” in the media/audience relationship.
- Ad avoidance is nothing new, but advertising doesn’t have to get in the way.
- Beyond ad interruption, today’s advertisers have become “frenemies.”
- The 5Cs solution: creativity, context, currency, collaboration, and conservation
Watch the keynote address:
Panel: “Where Advertising Goes Next“
The first panel, “Where Advertising Goes Next,” featured speakers from a wide range of companies spanning from Mars to Meta. The alumni panelists, Jessica Jorsch (BS ’07, advertising), Helen Katz (MS ’86, advertising; PhD ’88, ICR), Mike Kelly (BA ’79, LAS), Ashley McGowan (BS ’07, advertising), and Greg Morrison (BS ’07, advertising). Panelists discussed AI’s growing role in the advertising industry, including increasing efficiency of mundane tasks like emails, the ability to analyze large sets of data quickly in multiple facets, and reviewing contracts to work faster.
One of the key takeaways was a surprising statistic—only a small percentage of women use GenAI compared to men. McGowan urged women to take advantage of GenAI as a tool to keep up with the growing trends. Panelists agreed that GenAI will continue to grow within the industry as a tool that helps increase workflow and productivity, but warned humans need to think, be critical of the information, and make the final decision.
Watch the video:
Panel: “From Classroom to Industry“
The second panel, “From Classroom to Industry- Exploring the Possibilities of Advertising,” highlighted alums Lacey Gilbert (MS ’11, advertising), Adam Hamilton (BS ’11, advertising; MBA ’19), Amy Restko (BA ’13, LAS; MS ’14, advertising), Bill Rouse (BA ’96, LAS), and Rachelle Pierre-Lott (BA ’03, LAS).
The panelists fielded questions written by students about post-college careers and shared their advice on how to get there. The speakers urged students to try everything and grow their toolsets, say “yes” to opportunities, and encouraged them to ask questions and remain curious. Panelists reminded students to always seek out new knowledge, and stay in touch with what is happening in the industry.
Students had many questions about AI’s role in their future careers, but Gilbert soothed some fears.
“[AI is] never going to be as clever as us, they’re never going to pull the social proof or the cultural proof… the little rabbit holes on Reddit that we would find, so that’s one up for the humans here,” she said.
Watch the video:
Student Showcase
During the Student Showcase, students and recent graduates had the opportunity to display some of their best work. The showcase included research studies, app development, creative execution, and campaigns from The Sandage Project, the capstone course in the advertising program.
In addition to student work on display, four live presentations were held. Adeetya Upadhyay, a senior in computer science + advertising, shared the “Code Meets Creativity” campaign, which included a video promoting the CS + advertising major. The video was developed by a team of students in ADV 333: Agency Experience.
Junior Karys Boeriu, and seniors Cara Choi, Sarah Sepahdari, and Isabella Brown created an app called Roami to help people learn a new language on the go. The app was designed for the ADV 409: Media Entrepreneurship class.
ICR doctoralstudent Aiman Kazybayeva presented her research on Visual Metaphor Complexity, detailing how the complexity of visual metaphors in advertising affects viewers’ attention, comprehension, and memory.
Recent advertising graduate Lily Kovich (BS ’26) presented an Arctic Fox ad campaign made in ADV 454: Creative Concepts II. She discussed her new creative process while making the campaign and shared the revisions made during editing.
ICR doctoral student Boram Cho and senior Abby Wilson also submitted their research projects for the showcase titled “I Don’t Want Ads I Just Want Information” and “From Screen To Shopping Cart: Consumer Responses To “As-Seen-In” Shoppable Ads In Streaming Television” respectively. We look forward to sharing more student work in the future!
Watch the video:
Creative Hackathon: Reviving Toys“R”Us
Attendees took part in a creative hackathon designed to revive the once thriving Toys“R”Us for the next generation. Teams were tasked with developing a creative campaign to relaunch Toys“R”Us as an immersive experience both in person and online. The deliverables included a big idea, a sketch, two tactics or channels of promotion, as well as an updated mascot persona.
Teams then presented their ideas to the room. Campaigns for a revamp ranged from targeting adults that can spend their own money on the cool toys they wanted as a kid to the feeling of nostalgia from the old Toys“R”Us store. This exercise gave students and alumni a chance to see how each other worked and solve a real-world problem.
As the first ad program in the country, the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising in the College of Media at the University of Illinois continues to position itself at the forefront of advertising education. We advance the future of advertising within an evolving media landscape by empowering our students and producing transformative research.
The Sandage Symposium was created to connect students and alumni, with networking being a big focus of the event. To aid in student-alum connection, attendees were encouraged to participate in a student-made bingo game—squares included finding somebody who works at an ad agency, or has worked with a startup, or has been on TV, or is a Chicago sports fan. Aside from bingo, students and alums had the chance to talk about the previous panels, find shared experiences at Illinois, and get real-world industry insights and advice.