Friday, March 7, 2008

Students outshine professionals at greater Miami Addy Awards

South Florida Business Journal - by Jeff Zbar

The ad was simple - simply powerful.

"Tool belt," an ad for furniture retailer Ikea, showed just a leather tool belt slung on the hip and carrying a single piece of hardware: an Allen head wrench.

That it won a best of show award at the Advertising Federation of Greater Miami's recent Addy Award competition was no surprise to organizers and judges. That it was created by art directors Mary Romero, Ratko Cindric and Dina Ruwe - three students from the Miami Ad School - was a surprise.

"In a professional competition, you're occasionally going to be underwhelmed by many of the professional entries," said Robert Campbell, one of the judges and creative director with 808inc in Houston. "But kids are completely driven by the creative. They don't have a client to deal with. So, this was nice work and a great execution."

The annual event, held this year on March 1, showcased some of the top work created in Miami. While no single piece won overall best of show, among the best of show winners were La Comunidad for broadcast and print English (plus 19 gold Addys), Out of the Blue Advertising for non-English print (plus nine golds), and accentmarketing for non-English broadcast (and five golds). Creative On Demand (nine golds) and Out of the Blue shared best of show interactive.

Among other gold winners were: Alma DDB (with 11 golds); Propeller, Macias Advertising and Marca (each with eight); Soffer Adkins Advertising (six); Tinsley Advertising and SCPF (four); Brenalt Sabatino Day, iChameleon Group and Nativo (three); Tag Advertising, Zubi Advertising, PG Creative, Pumped and Machado Garcia-Serra (two); and GoldForest, The Factory Interactive, Creative Mindworks, Diaz & Cooper Advertising, The Yellow Butterfly Project, LGD Communications, Wax Custom Communications, The Alten Group, KabooKaboo Marketing, CorporateGrafix, Lucky 3 Creative, Imagen, The Marketing Agency and Bromley Communications (one).

Judges awarded 12 student golds to Miami Ad School entrants, and one to the Miami International University of Art & Design. Jan Rexhausen was the instructor on the Ikea project.

This year saw 700 entries from some 60 agencies that included Spanish- and English-language work, said Annette Diaz, senior art director with Imagen, The Marketing Agency in Coral Gables, AdFed president and an event chair along with local ad exec Jose Reyes. Entries were down slightly from 750 last year. Strong entrants came from the general market or English-language categories, Diaz said. Interactive categories also had more entries, she said.

"This year, there was a lot more competition, with more agencies and interactive agencies handing in great work," she said. "The level of competition went up a notch."

Other judges included Jose Huguez of D Expósito & Partners LLC, Aaron Alamo of The Vidal Partnership and Martin Cerri of Grupo Gallegos for the Hispanic market. General market judges also included Tristan Kincaid of Ogilvy & Mather and Renaun Hochstein of Gard Communications.

"The student work really stood out," Hochstein said. "It was surprising and refreshing. Had there been an overall best in show, it would have been for the students' work."

Gold and select silver award winners from each of the three counties' Addy competitions advance to the American Advertising Federation's District 4 regional competition, to be held later this year. Winners from that event advance to the national competition.