2015 ADCD Show

Three years ago I attended my first real advertising award show. In Denver there are two local award shows. One--The Denver Fifty--celebrates the 50 best ideas that can take any form--the show itself is treated like an art gallery. The other, the ADCD show is broken into traditional categories. They serve dinner. They recognize 5 winners in every category and notify people before the show, so people will want to attend. But in every category, they award "top honors" to one entry. It's basically just like the Oscars system, except they refer to the 5 nominees as winners. The Top Honors are not revealed until the award show, and they call them up on stage and they have the option of giving a speech.

So yeah, three years ago, I attended the ADCD show for the first time. A few things that I worked on won awards but the more senior people on our team accepted them on stage and gave the speech.

I didn't go to the 2013 show. In 2014, I did go and actually went on stage to accept the first Top Honors of the night. It was a project that I did work on, but it must be acknowledged that the award was truly given to the art direction. I essentially wrote the captions. The art director who should have accepted it had already left our agency, so I was the only choice to accept it. I did so gladly, but I recognize it's not really my award.

Which brings us to this year's show.

I had three winners in three different categories. So I could be giving anywhere from 0-3 speeches.

First chance was for mixed-media campaign. Did not get it.

Second chance was for print design. Did not get it.

The last chance was the last award of the night: Broadcast Advertising. Which is a fancy way of saying TV commercial. And wouldn't you know, they called our name. Holy crap.

I hop out of my chair immediately--probably way too fast--and head toward the stage. I collect the award, a 3-d applause sign that lights up when you plug it in. And I give my speech.

The acoustics in the room were terrible and no one could hear my speech. Here it is: "What a week. I spent all day Saturday teaching my toddlers...the rules to Fight Club. And then on Monday I started a 48-hour juice cleanse, but instead of juice, I used buffalo wings."

And then I get to come back to my table with a stupid smile on my face.

Our agency won two awards, so that's super awesome.

Basically, of all the commercials submitted by Denver agencies this year, an esteemed panel of international judges said ours was the best. I've won a number of awards since moving to Denver, but this is the biggest and best so far.