Arkansas Business – 3.1.10
It’s hard to gauge the importance of the Addys these days. The signature event for the American Advertising Federation is a sort of local Oscars for the ad industry, and used to be a huge, fiercely competitive annual rite for creatives.
Since 2006, though, the bigger ad shops in central Arkansas have abstained, avoiding the time, expense ($55 or $65 per member entry this year) and employee hours it took to prepare and submit hundreds of entries. The central Arkansas awards this year received 286 entries – half of the heyday totals but the most since heavyweights such as Stone Ward and Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods bowed out.
Some 80 of those entries came from Eric Rob & Isaac, a six-year-old Little Rock shop whose principals – Eric Lancaster, Rob Bell and Isaac Alexander – felt ready to showcase their stuff at the Addys for the first time. And they just about owned the podium. Eric Rob & Isaac walked away with 39 gold, silver or bronze citations among the 88 categories. (The number and levels of those awards vary by category.)
Their comprehensive campaign for Riverfest was named Best in Show, which is all the sweeter for Bell and Alexander because they used to play the annual festival as musicians years ago. Their work as the agency of record for Riverfest was their first big account as an agency and ever since has been a springboard to greater visibility.
A haul like that makes a small agency want to mix it up with the big boys. “If I enter, I want to go against them,” Bell said. “I’d love it if they got involved again. It would be fun for us.”
Melissa Wilcoxson, the advertising and marketing manager for Arkansas Children’s Hospital and the Addy chair for AAF-Little Rock, hopes that by continuing to bring in judges from larger markets (this year’s were from Minneapolis, Seattle and Atlanta) the competition will attract new and former participants. But what’s in it for a big shop to go toe-to-toe with the scrappers?
For now, the Addys remain the battleground of the smaller firms. Other prolific winners among the 24 professional entrants were Exit Marketing (seven awards), Thoma Thoma (six) and, in photo and design categories, Arkansas Business Publishing Group’s own Little Rock Soirée, with six.
The Northwest Arkansas Advertising Federation held its own event, where, like last year, Springdale shop Saatchi & Saatchi X won Best of Show for an ad for the Animal Welfare League and 20 of the 44 awards overall. Last year, the firm’s Best in Show entry went on to become the chapter’s first to garner a national Addy.