No Comment, a University student a capella group, took the cake at Reser’s Fine Food’s 75th anniversary jingle competition. Of the four winning college a cappella groups, No Comment placed second and won $15,000 for their success. 

“​​Supporting the arts has long been a passion of our board chair, Patricia Reser, so creating this opportunity to showcase student talent while commemorating a major milestone felt like the perfect fit,” said Reser’s director of marketing communications, Laura Steele, in an email to The Daily Illini. 

Steele says that the brand looked for “technically impressive, but also memorable and brand-relevant” submissions as their winners. No Comment’s jingle fit the bill, bringing engaging visuals, energetic harmonies and a great representation of Reser’s.

Despite how effortlessly the group seemed to perform their piece, their success took a lot of hard work and dedication. This was a special one-time competition hosted by Reser’s to commemorate their anniversary milestone, so No Comment had very little knowledge of the competition’s scope and how to best prepare.

“We had no idea what to expect,” said No Comment’s co-music director Anthony Tu, a rising junior in Engineering. “We did not know who else would be submitting for this competition.”

In addition to competing blind, the group had relatively little experience with jingles. According to No Comment’s incoming president, Maggie McGough, a rising sophomore in AHS, some members of the group have songwriting experience, but as a whole, jingle-writing was a new challenge. 

To tackle the competition, McGough said the group split into small subsections to work on different parts of the final submission. Some members worked on the lyrics while others focused on the musicality of the piece.

“We were able to really play to each of our members’ strengths to create the jingles in a really collaborative way,” McGough said.

Their efforts paid off with their second-place win. McGough said this accomplishment was a swift morale booster and proved the group could create success outside of their comfort zone.

Not only does the group have a newfound talent in jingle-creating, but they also walked away from the competition with $15,000 — a hefty amount for typical college students. 

McGough said although they haven’t made a final decision on what the money will go towards, it will be able to open many doors for the group. She mentioned the possibility of traveling for both group bonding and for competitions.

“It’s definitely super exciting to have that money to use for those types of purposes,” McGough said.

Following a success-studded school year, No Comment’s good fortune with Reser’s was not beginner’s luck.  

Back in April, the group auditioned and were selected to compete in the Boston Sings Scholastic Competition that annually features five collegiate a cappella groups and an elusive theme. The theme is different every year and is known for being vague and creatively challenging. 

The group typically competes in the International Championship of Collegiate Acapella — think Pitch Perfect — and placed fourth in the finals in 2024. 

“We’ve been doing ICCA for quite a long time now, and going to BOSS and changing things up in terms of the structure of our set and the creativity that we brought to it was a really good fresh breath of air,” Tu said. 

This year was No Comment’s first time competing in BOSS, a unique competition especially with this year’s theme: dichotomy. The group decided on the sun and moon for this theme and executed it with half of the members dressed in butter yellows and the other half in deep midnight blues. 

Despite this being their first appearance at BOSS, No Comment placed first. The group was also presented with an award for “Sonic Cohesion” and their choreographer, Graham Carlson, won a “Visual Gods & Goddesses” award.

With these unique wins, the group can move forward into the next school year with a sense of being able to accomplish things outside of their established expertise. No Comment is certainly a group that Champaign-Urbana will want to keep their eyes on.

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