Granite Bay High seniors Marshal Downey and James Meder recently won a national contest through Varsity World, a teen lifestyle and media company that provides a safe environment for teens to explore their technological boundaries.

The pair teamed up as part of their advanced media class at Granite Bay High School for the You Make the Commercial Contest, sponsored by L'Oreal Paris. The commercial the pair made was announced the winner Jan. 30.

Having worked together in the past on media projects, 17-year-old Downey and 18-year-old Meder collaborated on the project last fall.

"We sketched some things out," says Meder, "and decided to go with the juice theme."

Downey recruited a couple of friends to star and Downey and Meder split the workload, though Downey did all of the animation.

The 30-second commercial starts out with Lindsey Peterson walking through the juice aisle at a supermarket. Everything is black and white until she spots the L'Oreal Color Juice lipgloss container, which is in color. Once she picks up the product and puts it on, she becomes colorized as well. Fellow shopper Kevin Doane takes visible notice as she passes and the commercial cuts to the specs on the product. The commercial closes with Peterson leaving the store with Doane carrying her shopping bags and the L'Oreal slogan "Because you're worth it."

"They worked about 60-70 hours on it," says GBHS media instructor Marty Newborn, who adds that the boys received class credit for their work on the project.

Out of about 100 entries, Varsity Media Group Chief Operating Officer Todd Stoller says the judges picked 25 finalists. Those finalists were placed on the Varsity World Web site for visitors to watch and rate their five favorites. In the one month that the commercials were featured, Stoller says more than 250,000 visitors voted. These votes counted for 50 percent of the score, while L'Oreal judges accounted for the remainder.

"I am told that the Granite Bay commercial scored high in brand awareness, creativity and marketability," says Stoller.

This is not the first time Granite Bay High has had success through Varsity World. Newborn has used the company in the past as an outlet to post student-made videos for the past several years. In 2001, his students won the Spirit of VTV contest by creating a commercial for Varsity TV, a component of Varsity Media Group. This is the first time, however, that Varsity has collaborated with another company on a contest.

The idea was that with a sponsor, Varsity would be able to offer real experience to students working with an internationally known product and company. They could also offer opportunities and a prize package they would not be able to offer themselves.

In addition to great campaign ideas, L'Oreal received direct input from the demographic they were looking to market their product to.

With L'Oreal sponsoring the contest, Varsity was also able to offer a complete tool kit for the production of the commercial, including product samples, to more than 100 interested schools. Stoller says the organization actually collaborates with more than 2,500 high school affiliates, providing Internet, cable and even cell phone outlets for student produced video clips.

"We just want the world to know what we have known for the past seven years," says Stoller. "How good (the students) are and the quality of video production."

Downey was likewise impressed with the quality of the student-produced commercials and both he and Meder were surprised that their video won.

"It was very competitive," says Downey. "It could have gone either way."

Downey had the opportunity to speak with some of the judges of the contest during a recent trip to Student Television Network National Convention in Southern California last month. He says they told him that one of the reasons the GBHS video was selected was because L'Oreal liked the idea.

Downey and Meder won a $3,000 donation to their school, as well as iPods and a trip to New York to see a commercial being shot for the winning team and their advisor.

Both boys are excited about winning the iPod, but Downey, who hopes to go into commercial production after graduation, is looking forward to seeing a commercial being shot and speaking with the professionals. He says he is intrigued by the entire television advertising process from brainstorming ideas to the finished spot.

"It's precise," he says about creating a commercial as compared to filmmaking. "(A commercial) has all the elements of a film but in 30 seconds you walk away with a message."

Newborn says the donation will be used to purchase two Cannon GL2 digital camcorders for the media classes.

The commercial can be viewed at www.varsityworld.com/videos/loreal/.