Ad Club Showcase 2011

All the biggest DC ad agencies walk into a room, then they talk about their work. Sounds like a terrible joke, but a great idea for anyone interested in advertising in DC. Just got back home from the first annual Best of DC Showcase hosted by AdClubDC. 10 of some of the best agencies in DC were there to present what they thought their best piece of work was from the past 12 months.
Here is a list of the presenters and the projects they talked about:
August, Lang & Husak – Decide to Drive campaign
Discovery Creative – River Monsters
GeniusRocket – Emily’s List
LM&O Advertising – US Coast Guard
The RP3 Agency – Norfolk Southern
Grafik – HondaInAmerica.com
SmithGifford – Identity Guard
Pappas Group – Virgin America in-flight entertainment
RTCRM – AARP
AKQA – Delta mobile
All the projects were great, but all very different. AKQA and Pappas groups showed some great interactive work on touch screen devices. It was interesting that both projects were for Airline brands as well. August, Lang & Husack’s Decide to Drive Campaign was really powerful and just won a Clio award in New York. Congrats guys! Grafik’s Honda in America online annual report was solid and of course SmithGifford brought their usual creativity with Identity Guard’s Steal my ID Campaign that I worked on back in the day.
I got to speak with a few of the creatives after the show, they were all very nice and willing to answer questions and talk for a few minutes. Only complaint I have was that the price was a bit steep, $30 for early tickets and $40 at the door for members is quite high compared to similar events I’ve been to hosted by AIGA. Despite that I still think it was a worthwhile event, I just hope there are some more events like this in the near future!
On a quick personal note I hope anyone I talked to could understand me, I’ve got quite the gap from oral surgery I had two weeks ago. On the plus side I got to take this awesome picture with Wes Johnson, the voice of the Washington Capitals. Maybe I have some career potential as a hockey player?