AAF DC hosted the American Advertising Awards-DC gala on Friday, March 18, and presented its 2016 ADDY® Awards, recognizing advertising creative excellence. This annual reception and awards presentation at the Newseum was attended by about 350 advertising and media professionals.

AAF DC received over 500 different entries from 75 agencies, design firms, in-house marketing departments, freelancers, interactive firms, production companies and PR firms. A panel of seven judges—general market and interactive—convened to review and score the entries based on creativity, originality and creative strategy. Winning entries were honored with a total of 53 Gold ADDY® Awards and 62 Silver ADDY® Awards along with Best of Category, Best in Public Service, and Best of Show Awards.

The Best of Show Award is determined by a consensus of the judges. Best of Category awards are given to the entries receiving the highest score in each category.

The evening’s top award, Best of Show, went to USA TODAY for their “Back to the Future Replica Coverwrap,” a newspaper coverwrap that replicated the edition of USA TODAY featured in the movie “Back to the Future Part II.”

The Best of Public Service Award was given to Edelman PR for “Salt at Work,” an online video created for the American Heart Association.

The Best of Category-Broadcast was presented to Marriott International for “Two Bellmen,” a short action-comedy video.

Best of Category-Print was awarded to SmithGifford for “Boat that Restores the Man,” a poster done for Woody Boater. The “Woody Boater Poster Series” by SmithGifford was awarded Best of Category -Collateral.

 Best of Category-Interactive was presented to WHITE64 for their online/interactive campaign “12 Days of Creativity.”

 SmithGifford took home the most awards, with a total of 17 (12 Gold ADDY® Awards, 5 Silver ADDY® Awards, in addition to the Best of Category-Collateral and Best of Category-Print). Other top awardees included Ogilvy Washington with 12 ADDY® Awards (9 Gold and 3 Silver) and RP3 Agency with 11 ADDY® Awards (6 Gold, and 5 Silver).

The American Advertising Awards Competition is a three-tiered national competition conducted annually by the American Advertising Federation (AAF), its chapters, and districts. With 40,000 entries nationwide, the ADDY® Awards Competition is the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition for creative excellence. Winners from the AAF DC ADDY® Awards will go on to compete against other winning entries from District Two, which includes New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and D.C.

A full list of winners is available at winners.aafdc.org.

(Photos by Tim Lundin)

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