At the American Advertising Federation 2016 ADDY Awards last Wednesday night, Energy BBDO was the top winner with a record-setting 93 awards topped by earning the Best in Show for a Ziploc plastic bags poster campaign.
In addition to winning “Best in Show” and two “Best in Category” awards, Energy BBDO won a massive 90 Gold, Silver, Bronze prizes across multiple categories for clients including Ziploc, Raid, Wrigley gum and Bud Light (its Super Bowl “Coin” spot).
Second in number of awards was Publicis Groupe’s Leo Burnett, the agency that usually dominates advertising competitions, especially local ones. It scooped up a total of 78 prizes: four “Best of Category” and 74 Silver, Bronze honors for clients including Pfizer, United Healthcare and perennial ad contest winner Allstate.
Publicis Groupe’s four Chicago agencies emerged with a collective 116 awards, with DigitasLBi’s 31, a Best of Category winner, SapientNitro’s four and Razorfish’s two added to Leo Burnett’s 78.
Digital Kitchen was named Best Agency of the Year and its client, Microsoft was a co-winner of Client of the Year.
Four special awards
Special Judges Citation of Excellence was won by marketing and technology agency SapientNitro for its “Merry Ambigumas Holiday Wall.”
Best in Show was Energy BBDO’s work for Ziploc’s “Chaos Comes to Life” poster campaign.
Agency of the Year was Digital Kitchen.
Client of the Year was a tie between Lending Tree, a client of The Onion, Inc. and Microsoft Headquarters, Digital Kitchen’s client.
“Best of Category” prizes
Print Advertising: Leo Burnett for Eggo’s “Defense”
Sales & Marketing: Energy BBDO for Raid’s “Red Dawn Mini Baits”
Cross Platform: Leo Burnett for Allstate’s “Social Savvy Burglar”
Online/Interactive: DigitasLBi for “Tagged by Maytag” Film, Video & Sound: Leo Burnett for McDonald’s “Ingredients”
Out-Of-Home & Ambient Media: Energy BBDO for Ziploc’s “Chaos Comes to Life”
Still more awards.
In addition to these special recognitions, Gold, Silver, Bronze awards were conferred upon 333 sub-category winners.
They included gyro with 20 awards; McGarryBowen with 17; Trisect, 13, Proof, Beam Suntory’s boutique agency, eight; JacobsonRost, seven; Cossette, Blue Chip Marketing Worldwide and Tom, Dick & Harry Creative, five each, and SapientNitro, four.
Also cited: The Mill, Laughlin Constable, Grisko, Klick, Ivor Andrew, Omnicom Group’s Designory, Burrell, PACO Collective, Cultivate Studios, Jetpack Agency, RPM, Lapiz and Independent Copywriter.com
Increased number of guests
The upbeat and upscale ADDY Reception was held at the Museum of Broadcast Communications and attended by 230 ad executives, their clients and vendors, 10% more than from 2015.
Chicago Ad Federation VP Lisa Jillson and board member Rocco Smeriglio, a senior account executive at Apple, made the award presentations to the top 12 awardees.
The CAF received 425 entries from 33 agencies, which was a comparatively small number of submissions considering that Chicago boasts 1,600 advertising, marketing and technology agencies.
The CAF judging panel used AAF American Advertising Federation’s guidelines for scoring. The matter of all the 11 judges having been while men was addressed by the CAF’s Jillson, who assured the advertising community that the 2017 judging panel would reflect the diversity that this year’s panel overlooked.
