What’s New for the 2018 American Advertising Awards?

The core of the American Advertising Award stays tried and true year after year, and it ought to! It’s a robust competition that has been around for years; something good that shouldn’t be messed with, because as they say, “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”. That said, AAF’s mission is to advance and protect the advertising industry and with that comes the necessity to keep the competition as fresh as the strategies, artwork, and advertising messages are that you strive to deliver to your clients (or professors) each day.  We gathered some tidbits – some old, some new, and others just worth mentioning, to make sure you are in the know on what’s new with the 2018 American Advertising Awards.

For the newbies, a little recap:

The American Advertising Awards are the industry’s largest and most representative competition, attracting over 50,000 entries every year in local competitions. The mission of the competition is to recognize and reward creative excellence in the art of advertising. Conducted annually by the American Advertising Federation (AAF), our local competition is the first of a three-tier, national competition. The call for entries for AAFCM’s competition is released in the fall with entries due around, or shortly after, the first of the year. The entries are judged and an award show is held to honor our club’s student and professional award recipients. From there, winning entries move on to the district and then, hopefully, national level to compete with other top-notch work from around the country.

The Award Show Theme

The culmination of the competition is a fun, theme-inspired show.  If you’ve been to AAFCM’s ADDY show in the past, you know we go big when it comes to executing a theme…both in attire and decor. This year, however, we’re taking a step back, and notch up, making the theme all about the work itself. Sometimes less is more and that will definitely be the case this year as we leave our somewhat ridiculous costumes at home and make a special point to honor the American Advertising Awards’ most important guest: the work.

Emerging Leader Award

The American Advertising Federation of Central Minnesota (AAFCM) is proud to announce our Emerging Leader Award. This award, new this year, was created to recognize young professional men and women who are making outstanding contributions to marketing, advertising, design, and/or communications.  Emerging Leaders are those who, though relatively young in their careers, have already proven themselves to be making an impact in their company and for their clients; they are individuals who have begun to further industry standards, creative excellence, and responsibility in areas of social concern. If you know someone who has an exemplary work ethic, pushes the envelope, challenges the impossible, embraces the unknown, and continually innovates, they are worthy of an Emerging Leader nomination (link to website). Emerging Leader Nominees must be under the age of 35 (as of the end of this year), and contribute to the industry in the Central MN community. Like the Silver Medal Award (link to website), each year AAFCM will bestow this honor upon an outstanding member of the central Minnesota community. Emerging Leader recipients are selected by a panel of judges that include community leaders and industry professionals and will be announced at the AAFCM’s American Advertising Awards, along with the recipient of the Silver Medal Award.

New Categories

Most actually aren’t new to the competition, but since you don’t know what you don’t know, we figured they’re worth mentioning because they may be new to you!

There are over 170 categories that fall within 7 divisions! Here is just sampling of them.

1. Sales & Marketing – includes well-known categories such as packaging, brochures, annual reports, book design, apparel, and direct marketing. Did you know you could also submit menu designs? Yes, menus. And you know you’ve seen some award worthy menus at our local breweries and restaurants.
2. Print Advertising – this is where newspaper and magazine advertisements land.  They can be any size, single ads or full campaigns.
3. Out-of-Home & Ambient Media – Guerrilla marketing aka “non-traditional advertising”, installations such as kiosks, art exhibit, trade show exhibit, retail store or an other design and build-out of a temporary or permanent branded environment, posters, and outdoor displays that are delivered to mass audiences on sidewalks, streets, etc. all fall within this category.
4. Online/Interactive – Did you know your blog could win an award? That’s right there is a category solely dedicated to blogs and digital publications. You can also submit mobile apps, virtual reality (new this year!), websites, social media marketing, or tools and utilities such as widgets.
5. Film, Video & Sound – this includes movie trailers, television and radio commercials, music videos, sales presentations, podcasts, and even webisodes.  
6. Cross Platform – An integrated campaign is defined as a campaign or series of ads, commercials or executions that utilize more than one medium.  So yes, if you’re a total rock star and your campaign spans more than one medium you can gather it all together and submit it as one whole entry here. 
7. Elements of Advertising – copywriting, infographics, illustrations, still photography, sound design, art direction, computer generated imagery (new!), data driven media, responsive design, voiceover talent, and video editing are just a few of the categories/elements of advertising you can submit.  

2017-2018 Rules and Categories for Professionals
2017-2018 Rules and Categories for Students

SEASON TICKET MEMBERSHIP includes ADDY ticket!

NEW this year our all-in-one membership, the Season Ticket, includes attendance to ALL events for one entire year including one ticket to the American Advertising Awards. And since AAFCM’s membership cycle is rolling – which means you are enrolled as a member for a full year from the day you sign up, no matter the time of year, it’s not to late to become a Season Ticket Member! This will save you $$ on entries and gets you into the show!  

There you have it! A little bit of new and whole lot of the same awesomeness for AAFCM’s 2018 American Advertising Awards. Whether you have attended the ADDY’s in the past and can’t wait to celebrate our local creatives and their amazing work again, are a past entrant and have submitted your work to the ADDY’s (and maybe even won!), know next to nothing about it but someone, somewhere told you how much fun they had at the ADDY’s and you’re wondering what it’s all about, or some sweet combo of those reasons, we look forward to seeing at this year’s show. We’ll all bask in the glory together celebrating the work and tremendous value local advertising agencies, companies with top notch internal marketing departments, and students that are the rising stars in the industry bring to our community.