Two advertising students from the University of South Carolina recently won the annual Mid-Atlantic Newspaper Advertising and Marketing Executives (NAME) competition for campaigns they created to convince college students not to smoke.

Joe Murray and Anne Almers, both seniors, placed first and third, respectively, and competed against students from universities in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. Second place went to a student from the University of Tennessee.

As a first-place winner Murray, a resident of Chapin, was awarded $2,500 and a paid trip to Virginia Beach to attend the NAME Convention. Murray's campaign focused on the aspirations of college students and included statistics on how cigarettes could damage these dreams.

Almers, a resident of Spartanburg and student in USC’s South Carolina Honors College, was awarded $1,000 for her third-place finish. Her campaign countered the notion that smoking makes one look cool.

Students from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications have placed in the top three positions of the NAME competition seven times in the past five years, including three first place wins.