Early-bird entrees being accepted for AAF DC's American Advertising Awards

Early-bird entrees are being accepted for AAF DC's American Advertising Awards. According to AAF DC, you should enter because:

First, you compete at home. Your work goes up against agencies, freelancers and in-house teams in our market: people with the same kinds of clients, the same budgets and the same Tuesday-afternoon fire drills you have. Around here, that means associations, nonprofits and government. Win here and you move on to district, then national. Every step is earned against people who know exactly how hard it was.

Second, judges come from out of town. They don't know your agency or our market. They've never met you at a mixer or heard your name dropped at one, and they don't care whose logo is on your lobby wall. They see your work for the first time, cold, and they score what's in front of them.

So, states AAF DC, "a big name buys nothing here. Neither does the budget, the headcount or the case-study video with the drone shots.Every awards season, something very human happens. Judges are people, and people trust what they've seen before. The campaign that ran during the Super Bowl and then everywhere else, the one already talked about in the trades and at the bar, walks into the judging room with a head start. Usually it's good work. But by the time it's on the table, it already feels like a winner, and familiar starts to look a lot like deserving."

More here.