With more than 60,000 entries annually, the national ADDY® Awards are the world’s largest and arguably toughest advertising competition. The ADDY® Awards represent the true spirit of creative excellence by recognizing all forms of advertising from media of all types, creative by all sizes and entrants of all levels from around the world. The American Advertising Federation conducts the ADDY® Awards through its 200 member advertising clubs and 15 districts. It is the only creative awards program administered by the advertising industry, for the industry.

This year’s local competition produced 446 entries from Baton Rouge professionals and LSU students. Judging was held January 16, 2010 at Lamar Advertising. Renee Miller, President/Creative Director of The Miller Group in Los Angles, Ca.; Jim Dudley, Broadcast, Copywriter, Creative Director of Dudley Creative in Roanoke, Va.; and Jimmy Ball, Art Director/Designer, Photographer, Interactive of Jimmy Ball Design in Dallas, Texas, served as judges for the competition.

Gatorworks brought home a Silver ADDY award for their client project, Santa’s Online Wishlist. Santa’s Online Wishlist is an interactive website where children can dress a snowman, have fun in Santa’s Toy Factory, view Santa’s Mailroom, and best of all send emails to Santa Claus. The website took approximately 6 months to hand-draw, custom illustrate, and then custom animate using Adobe Flash software. David Link, Creative Director and lead designer/developer on the project, said, “It’s really nice to be recognized for our hard work, especially in a community as talented as AAF.”

At the red carpet ceremony, 41 gold ADDY®s, 50 silver ADDY®s, three Special Judge’s Awards, a Mosaic Award, Best of Show and Best of Category awards were presented. Advertising students were also recognized with 17 gold ADDY®s, 19 silver ADDY®s, a Best of Show and Special Judges’ Awards. ADDY® 2010* also recognized professional excellence on the business side of the advertising industry with its Pinnacle Awards.

Rodriguez joins the following 11 other newly elected board members:

Jessica Bensen
Amedisys

Emily Clemmons
Ink & Air/Gaupp-Wozniak Communications

Steve Davison
Digital FX, Inc.

Margo Jolet
LSU Office of Comunications & University Relations

Miranda Lemon
Amedisys

Theresa Overby
BR Area Convention & Visitors Bureau

Shannon Perry
Lamar Advertising

Mandy Porta
Success Designs

Aimee Shultz
Covalent Logic

Hunter Territo
XDesign

Trammie Tran
Lamar Advertising

The American Advertising Federation (AAF), headquartered in Washington, D.C., acts as the “Unifying Voice for Advertising.” Celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2005, the AAF is the oldest national advertising trade association that represents 50,000 professionals in the advertising industry. The AAF has a national network of 200 ad clubs located in ad communities across the country. Through its 215 college chapters, the AAF provides 6,500 advertising students with real-world case studies and recruitment connections to corporate America. The AAF also has 130 blue chip corporate members that are advertisers, agencies and media companies, comprising the nation’s leading brands and corporations. For more information, visit the AAF’s Web site at http://www.aaf.org/.

(Baton Rouge, La) Gatorworks’ Brian Rodriguez, David Link, and Alise Johnson were selected to speak at the 2009 American Advertising Federation of Baton Rouge Student Conference to be held on Saturday, March 28. The conference will discover how the area’s finest copywriters, designers, media buyers, and photographers keep their profession from becoming #2.

The Gatorworks team will discuss “Making the Transition from Print to Web” during one of the breakout sessions at the conference. “We find that many graphic designers coming out of college have a strong background in print design; however, they have a hard time making the transition into web designers,” says firm president Brian Rodriguez. Brian and his team hope to share tips and tricks that will assist the print graphic designer in becoming a successful designer for the web.

Be sure to check the Gatorworks blog at www.gatorworks.net after the conference for a recap of their presentation. To find out more details, contact Brian Rodriguez at (225) 709-6153.