I have seen the future. Advertisers and marketers should be afraid. Very afraid.

I spent today with a client. It was an interactive session with members of the company’s communications team, but during the last couple hours, the group watched a presentation by students from Emerson College, finalists in this year’s National Student Advertising Competition, sponsored by the American Advertising Federation.. (The professor guiding the team, Douglas Quintal, is married to one of the company’s communicators attending the weeklong summit.)

The presentation I saw—one of several trial runs before the students head to the finals in Atlanta on June 8 and 9—was one of the best I’ve seen in years. These kids—who have already made it through several rounds of competition—put on a 20-minute pitch that rivals the best I’ve seen from polished professionals with years of experience. From their personal delivery to their presentation support materials, to the written plan, their work could compete—and win—against any agency out there.

All of which is beside the point. The point is their organic understanding of the way social media and traditional communication have integrated. They’re not gushing enthusiasts proclaiming social media this and social media that. Social media is just part of their lives and they understand the way they—and the target demographic established for them by the competition rules—use these tools as day-to-day vehicles for communication.

Because their competition can still benefit from knowledge about their pitch, I won’t go into any details, but I hope somebody is videotaping it. What I can say is that AOL, the sponsor of this year’s competition, issued the equivalent of an RFP to which all student teams had to respond. Teams were required to propose a campaign to promote an AOL brand.

And these kids nailed it. Sure, there were some quibbles and ideas for improvement here and there, but they nailed it. If I could package these students up and bring them with me, I’d put them in front of every communication leadership team I meet and say, “See? This is what I’m talking about.”

Some agencies will be very lucky to hire these kids. A smart one would hire them as a team, but I doubt there are any quite that smart.

There are two possible outcomes of the competition next week. The Emerson team could win, and I suspect they have an excellent chance. Or, they could lose, which has even more significant implications. If they lose, it means the Emerson team isn’t a fluke, a rare combination of raw talent guided by a savvy professor. It means there are a lot of advertising and marketing students poised to assume positions in agencies and companies where they can bring their organic understanding of the new media world to bear. They can work on campaigns based on their innate understanding of new communication models.

For all those communicators putting off learning about social media, hesitating, resisting, this is very bad news. You could quickly become expendable as agencies populate their ranks with those who (and I really do hate using this phrase) “get it.”

I was only barely aware of the National Student Advertising Competition before today. Now I’ll be awaiting word of the outcome with tremendous anticipation.

Go Emerson.