ADDYS

Touching Down in a Puff of Snow and Frozen Bills Fans’ Tears – Judging the 2013 Buffalo ADDYs

ADDYs_AdClubBanners_WrapUp_v2This is part four of our 2013 ADDY Recap. (Part one: Best of Show(Part two: A Word from the Judges) (Part three: Special Award Winners)

Today, we bring you a recap from one of our judges. 

For those of you paying attention to how we pick judges, we don’t normally set out to have a judge who is from the area. But when they come highly recommended, run a digital agency in New York, and have been removed from the market for about a decade, we can make an exception.

Dave Fletcher (@davefletcher) is the Founder / Executive Director of The Mechanism, New York. This is his experience coming back to town to judge our show.

350-downtown

I gracefully exited Buffalo in 1994, swept away from one unbelievably frigid place filled with more bars than gas stations to another city (Cleveland), which also had arguably more alcohol than petrol. Despite the seemingly year-round threat of lake effect snow, fear of a probable yeti attack on Elmwood Ave or the misery of being a sports fan in this town, I have never met folk who are more kind-hearted, fun to spend time with… or dare I say it “clever” than in Buffalo. It will always be my home away from wherever I currently live, and if I could simply bottle up just some of the enthusiasm exuded by the people who dwell in this chilly little slice of New York State, I would. Well, I kind of did on my recent trip to Buffalo to judge the Addy’s, but more about that later.

Between DJ’ing at WBNY, The Inn-Between and Mickey Rats (two of them), I was a semi-functional designer after graduating from your Buffalo State College in 1992. I worked for one massive art director Gregg Fox as an intern, freelanced for Marine Midland Bank, and eventually, with a creative titanosaurus in Michael Anthony; my first design “boss” after graduating. In fact, during my tenure with Mike Anthony, we won an Addy for a pizza box design and cheesy, er…cheeky campaign for Picasso’s Pizza. I think we might have even gotten a free slice from them for our hard work.

arrivalSo back to the semi-present. Opening my eyes as our plane touched down, I was reminded of the quintessential glacial Buffalo landscape — a delicate smashup between the flat earth society and residing on the planet Hoth. Rampaging Wampa may have come into blurry focus as the plane touched down in a puff of snow and frozen Bills fans’ tears. My driver, who should have simply complained about the weather, swapped bartending and sports stories for the entirety of the trip to the Comfort Inn, a luxury hotel filled with various Sabres fans who were in to watch their favorite hockey team get pummeled by whatever opponent was in town. Alcohol becomes the mighty equalizer for many of these fans, but considering that only half of the actual players are hammered during the game, the rest of them have to simply beat each other silly just to stay warm.

Only one other judge had made it into town, due to a hatchet of a storm that likely was brewed by Buffalonian warlocks to keep the real weirdos out, so we travelled to Cole’s with our resilient hosts from the Buffalo Ad Club. Cole’s is a restaurant that also functions as a fully sanctioned boxing ring at 2am, when the kids are really worked up into a froth. In the late 80s and early 90s, I used to go to Coles to hang with smarter people after I got tired of drinking quarter beers (and discussing how we were paying too much for beer) at Mr. Goodbar next door. After a lively debate about the difference and similarities between fried pig anus and calamari, we munched on what used to be trash before the kind folks at the Anchor Bar, turned it into Buffalo Gold — chicken wings.

Time was running out, the bars were only open ‘til 4am… so we took a quick pit stop at Founding Fathers — a bar overrun with bearded intellectuals and a few Sabres fans, drowning the evening’s loss over some microbrews and “make your own nachos,” just like the real “founding fathers” would have liked it. For a second, I felt like I was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn — but without the fear of a sudden irony attack. One night down and one magical night to go.

colesAfter a terrible night’s sleep, I awoke at 2am after having a nightmare about a wide-right kick in Super Bowl XXV… yes, I still have them (and if you must know, they intensify the closer I am to Orchard Park). Rising eventually at 6am, I slipped into my Gortex bodysuit, 12 layers of flannel, and a hat made from a real Seal (the singer, not the cuddly beast) and trekked out into the sharp morning air to find a good cup of coffee to pour over and eventually into my skull. The Spot, inexplicably positioned directly across from a Starbucks — almost as if the Buffalo coffee gods dared Seattle to try to serve coffee on the same street — was perfect. Again, despite the bitter cold, the coffee, baristas and customers were all smiling, the design of the place was inviting, and there I was, in a Gortex bodysuit. I may have been wearing aviator goggles. Anywhere else in the world, I would have been beaten to a pulp for looking so foolish. Here, they practically revered me like a god, or at least as one of them…which in my book is even better.

We were picked up promptly at 9am and hurtled to the local PBS bunker to judge and (likely) be judged by the Buffalo Ad Clubbers. Hordes of coffee and Tim Horton’s were pumped into our stomachs through the feeding tubes that were apparently installed the night before during our pig rectum discussion at Cole’s, to enable us to focus “razor-sharp” on the vastly enticing and exciting entries — a veritable designers cornucopia of creative output. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I went to the big show in the early 90s and one thing stood out — we all kind of sucked compared to the work we reviewed on this day. My only helpful comment would be that the website coders need to pay a little more attention to the order of their JavaScripts (Google “analytics code” at the bottom of the page! You lost points…), and a WordPress site is still a WordPress site, no matter how much effort you put into the theming (you know who you are).

dave-in-judging-roomNow, myself and the other judge “what’s his name”  were bonding like sailors on a long voyage until, seemingly just in time for free wings and “quarter-sized pepperoni” pizza from La Nova, in waltzed the second “what’s his name” or as I like to lovingly call him, “Thing 2”. After announcing something about how fantastic he looked and repeatedly announcing how much better his parka was than mine, and after I finished weeping, we also bonded like sailors, this time on an ancient hunt for the mighty Kraken — the coveted “Best of Show” award.

After we were forced to take increasingly “nuder” photos for your awards programme, and after the initial humiliation and obvious delight of our (captors) hosts of said nudity, we finished the day by watching the commercial entries and choosing Best of Show, huddled with arms around each other weeping like willows. Now, choosing Best of Show wasn’t an easy task, as many of the entries were most deserving, so we deliberated with a fourth judge, transmitted in via some large mobile device without buttons someone called an “i” Pad (don’t worry, it’ll never catch on, so don’t even bother making your website responsive).


Now for those of you that think being a judge is an easy task, or that we must have been crazy to pick what we finally did instead of your marvelous entry, I say “Bully!” We all took things very seriously, and were very much in sync with our choices. We looked at, held and likely made love to, many of your entries from 9am to 8pm. The best truly won, and if you didn’t get an award, just keep trying. Oh, and be sure to get real drunk at the Addy’s, because I hear they stop serving liquor during the halftime ceremony.

calumetWe had a great dinner during our last night with folks that I will now gratefully consider friends, and even more drinks later that night. We all patted each other on the backs for a job well done, and again, despite my painful back welts from one of the judges (you know who you are), I don’t hold any grudges. Only love for my Buffalo brethren. I was with you when the Bills were beaten by Giants, and beaten like dogs in three Super Bowls afterwards. I was there for all that “fun.”

It’s worth supporting organizations run by pros and truly fantastic Creatives like you have. One of the judges nearly got a Buffalo tattoo while we were hanging out at the old Merlin’s on the last night, and the only thing in my mind that was truly crazy about it — is that I didn’t think of doing it first…

…And I have permanent bruises from where Thing 2 slugged me with a La Nova pizza slice, because I disagreed with his opinion on kerning.

Now I mentioned that I managed to nab a piece of Buffalo. My firm has nabbed one of your great Creatives, Michael Anthony —not only because he is a great friend and a better designer, but believe it or not, I truly want some of your Buffalo magic at my agency in New York. My firm, The Mechanism will be better for it, and for a 99 buck flight, you can come visit him, and we’ll talk too…

blue-monkYou’re all REAL, never pretentious and never given the credit you all rightfully deserve. I wanted to buy a “Buffalo Hates You Too” shirt while I was there, not because I thought it was particularly offensive, but because it’s got some attitude. You’re living in a great city — one of the entries used a local band’s tune to narrate the point that Buffalo is rising. It choked me up because I know it’s true.

…There you go. I was moved, because I get it.

So this post is a love letter to Buffalo and its great tradition of creativity and camaraderie as much as an occasionally serious account of my judging experience for the Addy’s. I still think they must have drugged me when they picked me up. Because no freezing, flat, insanely windy place on earth should still be this much fun — more than 10 years after I left.

Ah yes, and a sincere and heartfelt thanks to Jason Yates, Tricia Barrett, Michael and the other great folks from Buffalo for hosting me, and judges Brett McCoy, Joseph R. Stanfa and David Hodge via our iPad chat. You’re all class acts.

xo,
Dave
The Mechanism

ADDYS

Here’s to the 2013 WNY ADDY Special Award Winners.

ADDYs_AdClubBanners_WrapUp_v2This is part three of our 2013 ADDY Recap. (Part one: Best of Show(Part two: A Word from the Judges(Part four: Judging the ADDYs)

Each year as part of the local ADDY show, we recognize a small handful of stellar individuals who have left their mark on our ad community. Here are those we honored this year.

charlier
Jim Charlier
The David I. Levy Communicator of the Year Award

During his long and storied career, Jim has really done it all. So honoring him with the Levy was a no-brainer. Most recently – and perhaps most notably – Jim helped transform Garden Walk Buffalo from small neighborhood event into the largest garden tour in the country. Not too shabby.

paterson

Bill Paterson
The Alex Osborn Award for Creativity

A masterful writer and creative director, Bill’s quick wit and incredible talent made him an obvious choice for this honor. He’s worked at AM&As, Travers Collins, and as a freelancer for stint. Today, he spends his days at Gelia – an agency he helped shape into a true creative powerhouse.

farbo

Rebecca Farbo
The Odysseus Award

This award recognizes an outstanding client – a perfect description of Phillips Lytle’s CMO. Before the position in which she skillfully branded a nearly 200-year-old law firm, she was a writer, creative director, and agency president. Today, she’s a wonderful wife and mom – and the embodiment of what this award is meant to honor.

pastwik

Tina Pastwick
Advertising club of Buffalo’s Service Award

It was about time we sung the praises of our club’s mostly unsung hero. This mainstay of the Buffalo ad community and backbone of the club has given countless hours and matchless energy. This honor was long overdue, to say the least.

selby

Lillian Selby
Future Star Award.

An art director at Crowley Webb, Ms. Selby honed her skills at EMA and Loyola College following her graduation from William and Mary. Her profound work in such a short amount of time not only makes her deserving of this award, but also worthy of many others in the foreseeable future.

Congratulations to this year’s honorees.
Photos by Aaron Ingrao

ADDYS

2013 ADDYs – A Word from the Judges

ADDYs_AdClubBanners_WrapUp_v2This is part two of our 2013 ADDY Recap. (Part one: Best of Show(Part three: Here’s to the Special Award Winners(Part four: Judging the ADDYs)

Judge’s Choice

One of the new additions to the show this year was a Judge’s Choice award. We let each of our four judges choose their favorite piece for special recognition. After they finished judging Best of Show, we asked them to explain why they made their pick.

 

I was amazed by the level of creativity and range of outputs and media displayed by Buffalo’s creative community. From augmented reality to incredible posters, to awe-inspiring charitable works, at every turn i was impressed and delighted by not only the thinking but the production of such great ideas and boundary-pushing executions. To illustrate this point, i cant remember the last time i was a part of a group of grown adults squabbling over who might theoretically be able to acquire (ethically or not) samples of represented projects. Alas, we came out empty handed, but reinvigorated and refreshed by generally great work. We literally spent 3 hours discussing the final pieces and, although it was difficult, it was fun and we felt determined to give every piece its due effort.

Thank you Buffalo for the honor of viewing your work. Please keep pushing the envelope. And thank you for raising the bar for my own work.
Can’t wait to come back!
-Joe Stanfa, Senior Art Director, Golin Harris, Chicago, 2013 ADDY Judge

 
 

 

Judge’s Choice: David Hodge
Principal, Anstey Hodge Advertising Group, Roanoke
Smiling Ted’s Poster Campaign – Gelia

teds

 

Judge’s Choice: Brett McCoy
Engagement Director, MyJive, Charlotte
Spain Rodriguez Spain Rodriguez Exhibition Catalog – White Bicycle

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Judge’s Choice: Dave Fletcher
(@davefletcher)Founder / Executive Director, The Mechanism, New York
The Wake Website – Crowley Webb
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Judge’s Choice: Joe Stanfa
Senior Art Director, Golin Harris, Chicago
Fireworks Poster Campaign – Crowley Webb
fireworks

 

 

 

ADDYS

2013 ADDY Awards

ADDYs_AdClubBanners_WrapUp_v2This is part one of our week-long ADDY recap. (Part two: A Word from the Judges) (Part three: Here’s to the Special Award Winners) (Part four: Judging the ADDYs)

Thanks to everyone involved for another great ADDY awards. We have a bunch of post-ADDY stuff planned for our blog this week. Today, we look at the winners, including Best of Show.

Online Showbook

For those of you who couldn’t make it to the show, we’ve put the showbook online. See all the winners, and be envious of your colleagues who were able to bring home the attractive printed version.

Best of Show Judging

Take a look at how our judges picked the 2013 Best of Show. This year was a particularly thorough deliberation, so we broke the video into two parts.

Part one: Choosing a Top 5 

 

Part two: The Final Decision

 

A huge thanks to our judges:

Dave Fletcher (@davefletcher)
Founder / Executive Director
The Mechanism, New York

David Hodge
Principal
Anstey Hodge Advertising Group, Roanoke

Brett McCoy
Engagement Director
MyJive, Charlotte

Joe Stanfa
Senior Art Director
Golin Harris, Chicago

 

Best of Show

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JDRF A Spark of Imagination Invitation – Gelia

 

Runners-Up

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Friends of Night People Poster – Crowley Webb

 

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Andrew Bird “Lusitania” Poster – White Bicycle

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Ultra Lube Clearview Mailer – Gelia

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The Wake Website – Crowley Webb

 

The Night’s Big Winners

For those of you keeping a count, Crowley Webb was awarded the most ADDYs of the night, taking home 24 awards (six Gold and 18 Silver). Gelia received a total of 14 awards (three Gold and 11 Sliver), White Bicycle was honored with seven awards (three Gold and four Silver), and Hadley Exhibits took away three awards (two Gold and one Silver). Other awards highlights include:

The Martin Group (one Gold and four Silver)
SKM Marketing Group (one Gold and two Silver)
McDade Media (one Gold and two Silver)
Cenergy (one Gold)
First + Main Media (one Gold)
Print Collection (one Gold)
Travers Collins (three Silver)
Telesco Creative Group (two Silver)

 

Other Awards

Gelia took home our first-ever Voice of the People award, for their Cornerstone TV Campaign.

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Crowley Webb won the xpedx Creative Use of Paper Award, as well as Best Showbook ad

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And don’t forget that everything entered in the show is available to view in our online gallery.

 

ADDYS

Where the hell do they find these judges?

This question asked every year after the ADDYS. It’s understandable. These four strangers you know only as a headshot in the show book are judging you; rating your work on a scale of 0-100, and scrutinizing your font choices.

Contrary to popular opinion, our judges are not drifters picked up from the Greyhound terminal. We fly in Advertising professionals from around the country to judge all of the work submitted to our show. Choosing the ADDY judges is a pretty intensive process with more requirements than just a free weekend, and the willingness to take an all-expenses paid trip to Buffalo in January.

In order to give a peek into our process, here are some of the considerations that go into selecting judges each year:

urlWhere we start
The AAF provides a list of willing judges for the ADDYS. While this list is a good place to start, many of those names were added during the Carter administration. If they’re still alive, they’re simultaneously being contacted by every other AAF-affiliated Ad Club that’s also putting on a show. Chances are if the Miami Ad Club asked, they’re not returning our emails.

Past that, it’s largely word-of-mouth. We ask past judges and other Ad Clubs for suggestions. This has proven the most successful, and has found our best judges. We try to avoid someone who is a friend of a friend of someone at an agency in town.


urlMadison Avenue or Madison, Wisconsin
One big consideration is where the judges come from. One school of thought is to bring in judges from like markets. These would be ad men and women who work on similar clients, and understand the landscape of industries we have in Buffalo. Places like Cleveland, Baltimore, and Charlotte. To keep some balance, we also shoot for some big markets like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

We have to be careful to avoid some of those intolerable creeps you may have seen on The Pitch. There is the tendency of some view Buffalo like Mayberry, and there have been judges in the past who score things they don’t like as straight zeros, ruin the score balance, and act rather dickish.

So we try to strike a balance. It’s nice to get the opinion from someone in a big market, as well as a place that is similar to Buffalo.

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We try to be diverse – TRY.
There are a lot of things to consider when creating a diverse judging panel. We strive for a mix of writers and designers, big to small agencies, traditional and digital, large to medium markets, and ethnicity and gender. Unfortunately, situations arise where we reach out to 25, hear back from 12, and only eight are available. We can’t always cover all of the bases.

It’s not a good thing, but think about the diversity of the Buffalo Advertising industry. You’ll probably struggle to reach two hands counting all the creative directors that aren’t white dudes. This trend is not far off from the pool of possible judges.

They don’t know who Rick Jeanneret is
When submitting to the show, one item to realize is that these people do not know our market. This is intentional. By this, we mean we won’t have a judge who knows the agencies in town well enough to form biases.

Because of that, there is going to be a bit lost in translation. They won’t know if something is part of a long-established campaign in the Buffalo market, and may not get the local references. Think about that next year when you are considering entering a piece that contains a delightful “cheekta-vegas” pun.

url-3Cash money
Another consideration is cost. You may not know this, but the Buffalo ADDYS are not a multi-million dollar endeavor. We keep a pretty lean budget, as this show often funds much of the Club’s activity for the next year. We try to have judges that are a direct flight away. As so, we tend to stick to the east coast. If we can convince someone from Toronto or Cleveland to drive, that’s even better. (Freight hopping is largely discouraged.)

 

The Final Four
Once we get a handful of candidates who are willing to come, we then assemble our list. We need to have the right balance, so using the criteria above, the ADDY committee collectively picks four to five judges. An alternate judge is wise to secure since weather – and creative directors – can be unpredictable. Locking into the final judges is still a bit of a gamble. You may think you have all the right people, but don’t really know until they show up to judge. Creatives are a strange bunch, finding four of them whom you want to be in a room with for eight hours can be a tall order. The important thing is that we’ve done enough of our homework, so it (usually) works out well.

This Year’s Group
For the 2013 ADDYS, we have four judges. They hail from New York, Roanoke, Charlotte, and Chicago. We’re going to let you get to know them more on this blog in the coming weeks. Hopefully this post has helped provide a little context for when you complain about lousy judging the day after the ADDYs.

Jason Yates is an Ad Club board member, and Co-Chair of the 2013 WNY ADDYs.

ADDYS Blog

ADDYGEDDON Postmortem

Best of Show Judging

Take a look behind the scenes, to watch the judges decide best in show. They start by putting all of the Gold winners on a table, and narrow the field down to their favorite piece. We recorded this year’s deliberation so you can get a better idea of how the judging process works.

This year’s judges:

Camron Gnass – Creative Director, Traction, Lansing, MI

Jennifer May – Interactive Designer, designRoom Creative, Cleveland, OH

Chris Miller – Writer, Cramer Krasselt, Milwaukee, WI

Ann Clayton – Creative Manager, Advance Autoparts, Roanoke, VA

 

Best of Show:

Gelia – Trico – Moment of Truth :15

Best of Show Runners-up

Crowley-Webb – Irish Classical Theatre Company – ICTC Wake Mixed Media

 

Gelia – JDRF – The Heroes of JDRF Invitation

Also winner of the xpedx Creative use of Paper award

 

Gelia – Smiling Ted’s Used Cars – Smiling Ted’s Campaign

 

The Martin Group – Buffalo Bills – Buffalo Bills “Mom-Squad”  Videos

Best Showbook Ad

Gelia

See the rest of the winners

Check out a full recap of all the winners over at AdHub

What did you think of the show?

We want to know what you thought of the show. Help us make it even better next year by taking our post-show survey.

Duplicate awards and extra showbooks (while supplies last) are also available. Contact us to learn more.

ADDYS Blog

ADDYGEDDON & UNYTS Blood Drive

At the Ultimate Blood Drive, giving and competing are in the same vein.

From February 27 to March 4, Advertising Club of Buffalo members are invited to compete in the Ultimate Blood Drive. The company to get the most blood donors for the week will be announced at ADDYGEDDON – March 16 at the Pierce-Arrow Museum.

Recruit co-workers, friends and family. Every person who donates using your company name counts towards your team score. It’s very easy – just go to any of the locations listed at http://www.unyts.org/ and say who you’re donating on behalf of.