The DC Ad Club celebrated the 41st annual ADDY Awards on Thursday evening, March 19. A crowd of 350 people attended the event, which recognizes the best in creative excellence in DC-area advertising - and the first level in a three-tiered competition sponsored by the American Advertising Federation (AAF). With 60,000 entries nationwide, the ADDY Awards is the nation’s largest advertising competition. The DC Ad Club received 843 entries from 98 agencies, design studios, media outlets, clients, and students across the region. A total of 105 Gold ADDYs and 122 Silver ADDYs were awarded. Winners were announced during the awarded show at the Carnegie Insitute of Science. Receptions were held in the Gallery of Winners before and after the presentation, which was emceed by Maryland Public Television's Bob Heck.
The evening’s top award, Best of Show, went to AKQA for the “Fallout 3 Campaign,” done for Bethesda Softworks.
Other top awards:
Best of Category-Collateral: Arnold Worldwide’s “National Train Day” done for Amtrak; Best of Category-Print: Redhead Companies’ "Satellite" done for International Spy Museum;
Best of Category-Interactive: Brightline Interactive’s “Relief Mission Challenge,” done for National Guard.
Karen Riordan, 2009 ADDY Chair and president of Arnold Worldwide, and Pierce McManus of Arnold Worldwide. Arnold took home the most awards - a total of 41 (1 Best Of Category-Collateral, 23 Gold ADDY® Awards). Other top awardees included Animal Planet with 26 ADDY® Awards (8 Gold and 18 Silver); Design Army with 23 ADDY® Awards (17 Gold and 6 Silver); Rosenthal Partners with 14 ADDY® Awards (6 Gold and 8 Silver); HZDG, Inc. with 12 ADDY® Awards (6 Gold and 6 Silver); Adworks with 11 Silver ADDY® Awards; and AKQA with 10 ADDY® Awards (10 Gold and 1 Silver).
Of note to us at the Capitol Communicator, among the awards presented to Design Army was a Silver for their design of our logo - and Design Army also designed this year's ADDY theme and collateral items.
Also, Matt Smith, president of SmithGifford, shared with us that he had to leave early and was not present when his firm won its ADDY. He told us, "Here is the irony of the night" - he found out he won via email and text."What are the odds of that happening?"