The Incredible, Amazing ADDYs
Crudite and Acrobatics ... just your average evening out, really.
The other night I attended the ADDYs awards ceremony, which is one of my favorite work-related outings of the year. The ADDYs are the awards given to those in the advertising industry by the American Advertising Federation, for excellence in everything from television commercials to Web sites to brochures ... to writing on someone's forehead. That's right, do really well with that human billboard concept and you could take home an ADDY for Unconventional Marketing.
The awards are given at regional and national levels - regional competitors are eligible to win a gold, silver, or bronze ADDY, and the gold and silver winners go on to compete against their peers across the country.
The best part of the ADDYs is the party surrounding the awards, though. Using a different theme every year, there's plenty of food, festivity, entertainment, and great conversation between all of these Creatives, all with ideas busting out of their heads. It's a great crowd for me, because no one minds when my gaze is easily diverted by a waiter, a colleague, a falling napkin, or a slight breeze.
They're all doing the same thing I am ... funneling their hopelessly short attention spans into careers where it's actually a benefit.
I wear a few hats at the ADDYS. First, I'm there as press, covering the event and also sort of being rewarded for any pre-event press I've provided. But as a business writer by day, I'm fairly ingratiated in the marketing community in my region, as many are my contacts. In addition, I moonlight as a publicist for two firms, both of which this year were ADDY winners. I submitted the entries for one of them, so their wins were particularly rewarding because it meant I didn't screw anything up. Woo.
In the past, the event has been held at a former high school-turned-event hall and condominiums, with a jazzy, white wine and cucumber sandwiches kind of vibe. Last year, the ADDYs featured a dance troupe that performed a motown routine that was stellar.
But this year, the event was even more of a smash. The coordinator was (is) actually a friend of mine, who pulled the whole party together with one, seamless theme, if I do say so myself.
The entire night was planned with a traveling carnival in mind, publicized with old-fashioned style posters featuring a caped magician. Mentalist Michael Paul performed among the crowd during the cocktail hour, and during a brief intermission. Acrobats from The Nimble Arts performed a floor routine and then led guests into the theater to view the awards ceremony, but first, there was an additional performance by Nimble Arts' award-winning trapeze artists. That was wild.
In all, there were about 60 winning projects, including this, which I've blogged about before, and a project featuring the work of this photographer.
After the ceremony, the gang went to Spoleto's to celebrate the best way we know how - with wine, caprese salad and twisted garlic bread. Insert Homer Simpson noise here.
