Art Directors Club Announces Winners of 87th Annual Awards!

Microsoft XBOX Halo 3 Wins 5 Gold Cubes as ADC Reveals Awards for Advertising, ADC Hybrid, Design and ADC Sphere

Winners of Corbis Creativity for Social Justice Award named

New York, NY – May 1, 2008 – The Art Directors Club today announces the top winners in the categories of Advertising and Design - including Interactive Media - for its 87th Annual Awards. The Art Directors Club is the first creative collective of its kind. Global membership spans the disciplines of design, advertising and visual communications.

Top Advertising Winners

Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy Toronto and Advertising Jury Chair, Nancy Vonk, and Creative Director TAXI NYC and Interactive Jury Foreman Jason McCann together with the 17 members of the international Advertising Jury awarded 21 Gold Cubes, 34 Silver Cubes, 55 Distinctive Merit and 60 Merit certificates this year.

Big Winner

Microsoft’s XBOX Halo 3 swept the Advertising channel with work from McCann Worldgroup San Francisco, T.A.G., AKQA and Stimmung with a total of 5 Gold Cubes, 1 Silver Cube and 2 Distinctive Merit certificates.

They earned Gold Cubes for:
* Broadcast/Product Service Promotion/Art Direction: Microsoft XBOX Halo3, Diorama, McCann Worldgroup San Francisco & T.A.G
* Broadcast/Online Commercial Webisode: Microsoft XBOX, The Making of John 117, McCann Worldgroup San Francisco & T.A.G
* Broadcast/Online Commercial Webisode: Microsoft XBOX, Ammo, Enemy Weapon and Hunted; McCann Worldgroup San Francisco & T.A.G.
* Integrated Advertising: Microsoft XBOX Halo 3, Believe, McCann Worldgroup San Francisco, T.A.G. & AKQA
* Broadcast/Craft/Art Direction: Microsoft XBOX Halo 3, Diorama, McCann Worldgroup San Francisco & T.A.G

Silver for:
* Broadcast/Craft/Direction: Microsoft XBOX Halo 3, Diorama, McCann Worldgroup San Francisco & T.A.G

Distinctive Merits for:
* Broadcast/Music/Sound Design: Microsoft XBOX Halo 3, Believe, McCann Worldgroup San Francisco, T.A.G. & AKQA
* Interactive/Microsite: Microsoft XBOX Halo 3, Believe, McCann Worldgroup San Francisco, T.A.G. & AKQA

“I haven’t seen many shows where one campaign galvanized the jury like Halo 3 did for this one. From concept to multi-layered execution, it was in a class of its own. The painstaking attention to detail, the incredible imagination at play and innovative channels used to bring it to life were fully appreciated. The biggest question for the jury was how to properly recognize its excellence. As the ADC did not have a “Best of Show”; the next best thing seemed to be multiple cubes and this acknowledgement that one of the toughest, most accomplished juries anywhere said collectively, ‘Wow I wish I’d done that!’.” said Nancy Vonk.

Leo Burnett dominated ADC’s Advertising category this year, amassing 16 awards including 8 Cubes and 1 Hybrid.

Other multiple award-winning agency networks were TBWA with 8 cubes, BBDO with 6 Cubes, McCann with 5 Cubes, DDB with 3 Cubes, while Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and Jung Von Matt were tied with 2 Cubes each.

ADC Hybrid Finalists

“Moving beyond integration, ADC’s Hybrid category has evolved, and now recognizes the most innovative, groundbreaking communications that utilize multiple media platforms and/or transcend conventional uses of media,” says Ami Brophy, Executive Director of The Art Directors Club.

The ADC announced 3 winners in the newly recast ADC HYBRID category for the work’s groundbreaking innovation. Winners in this category were also presented with the Yahoo! Big Idea Chairs.

ADC HYBRID CUBE WINNERS
* Wieden+Kennedy, Beijing City Attack, Nike, China
* Projector Inc., UNIQLOCK for UNIQLO, Japan
* Anomaly, Keep A Child Alive: “ iPhone Launch”, USA

Top Design Winners

Design Jury Chair, Dana Arnett, Principal of VSA Partners and Design Interactive Foreman, Hillman Curtis, Principal and Chief Creative Officer of hillmancurtis.com, ltd. together with 20 members of the 87th Annual Design Jury awarded 10 Gold Cubes in Design and 37 Silver ADC Design Cubes overall.

“I really enjoyed the process of judging the ADC design show this year and the chance to look at the work carefully, and in turn remind myself of the value, depth and beauty inherent in graphic design.” said Hillman Curtis.

“Designers have been members, exhibitors, judges and entrants to ADC’s annual awards for 87 years. Design and designers have been intrinsic to this organization’s process and integral to our DNA since our founding,” says Ami Brophy, Executive Director.

BBDO was the most consistent winner in the ADC Design channel with 5 Silver Cubes while SVA’s Jin Young Lee captured 2 Cubes and 1 Distinctive Merit certificate for Design in the Student Design category.

ADC Design Sphere Finalists

Helming the new ADC Design Sphere Award Jury was Marc Gobé, President and Editor of Emotional Branding LLC, who along with his jury identified an outstanding body of work featuring design innovation for a sustained design program for a single client by a single design firm.

“As the role of design moves from pure aesthetics to powerful brand messaging, Sphere honors those brands and their designers who use design as the core differentiator helping clients reach out to consumers for approval and acceptance. The award recognizes small and large businesses that have created both audacious and innovative visual philosophy throughout the years that translates into vivid and powerful brand communication tools.” said Marc Gobé.

Two ADC DESIGN Sphere finalists were named in the ADC’s unique new category. The winners represent remarkable, successful, sustained design programs – big and small:

* A Decade of Telus Design; TAXI Canada, Inc.
Over the last 10 years TELUS has developed and delivered a consistent and approachable natural look and feel in its communications materials thereby building one of the most recognizable and best loved brands in Canada.

* Mugaritz Restaurant; laia, Spain
A ten-year collaboration between this firm and the restaurant client illustrates integrated results of intricate and comprehensive design for Mugaritz Restaurant. The identity, environmental and experiential design were cohesively executed for one of Spain’s most famous restaurants while simultaneously retaining the characteristic organic and natural essence within a relatively small budget for over a decade.

Interactive Highlights

ADC’s Advertising Interactive Jury Foreman Jason McCann of Taxi NYC led his jury in the selection of 2 Gold Cubes, one each for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in the US and 777interactive, Japan; and 3 Silver Cubes one apiece to Poke/U.K., Forsman & Bodenfors/Sweden and TBWA Media Arts Lab/U.S.

ADC’s Interactive Design Foreman Hillman Curtis of hillmancurtis.com, ltd. spearheaded the judging process for the ADC Design Interactive Awards delivering 1 Gold Cube for ART + COM/Germany and 3 Silver Cubes, one each for the Goodby, Silverstein & Partners/U.S., Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO/U.K. and Saatchi & Saatchi/Germany.

All Interactive entries were judged within the Advertising and Design channels as entered. The interactive categories continued their overall increase in entries this year, with a 17% percent increase this year on top of a 19% percent increase in entries in 2007. Interactive media entries were received this year from 36 countries.

Corbis Creativity for Social Justice Awards

In its second year, the Corbis Creativity for Social Justice Award was shared by two top-scoring professional entries produced on a pro bono basis. The Corbis award presents a $10,000 cash prize to each of the not-for-profit clients from the winning professional entries. A Corbis scholarship in the amount of $5,000 US will also be presented to the top student entry in a pro bono category.

2 Golds

* 15 Below Jacket - TAXI Canada, Inc.
Aimed at developing survival gear for the homeless, the 15 Below jacket is a high-concept, low-cost, immediate solution to help those living on the street weather the cold. The coat is designed with pockets, which can be stuffed with newspaper – an effective and easily accessible insulator – to protect the wearer from the elements. Without stuffing it can be worn as a raincoat, and when rolled into itself, it becomes a backpack and pillow. The jackets were distributed to the homeless in major Canadian cities during extreme cold weather alerts.

* Let Us Do It, PRODIS Down Syndrome Foundation, VITRUVIO LEO BURNETT, Spain
Prodis issued a brief for a 30 second ad “to communicate that people with Down’s syndrome can be fully integrated into society with proper education.” The kids themselves created and shot an ad and movie trailer to illustrate their capabilities.

Student Scholarship

The $5,000 dollar scholarship goes to savedarfur.org as the result of ADC Student Silver Cube winner’s Darfur Genocide Campaign from SVA, United States. The Stop the Darfur Genocide Campaign posts random blank bills to evoke curiosity and then adds bills with red
check marks culminating in a main billboard reveal to apprise viewers
of the loss of human life, featuring the headline: ‘400,000 killed and still going’. Check marks function as a logo for the campaign as well as an indicator of lost lives.

ADC Winners Details

All Gold and Silver medalists, and Distinctive Merit and Merit winners, will be included in the Art Directors Annual 87, a hardcover book to be published by RotoVision in November, 2008. A complete list of winners will also be posted on the ADC web site at www.adcglobal.org.

For a detailed list of winners and creative credits for top awards, please contact Jen Larkin at the ADC at [email protected]. TV and radio winners are available as QuickTime and MP3 files.

Global Awards
The ADC 87th Annual Awards mirror the organization’s international reach with work entered from more than 66 countries this year, 27 of which will be represented as winners in the annual. In addition, ADC assembled the most internationally diverse jury in its history to judge the work. The Advertising jury, for example, included creative professionals from Canada, the U.K., Australia, South Africa, Spain, Germany, China, India, Italy, Japan, Argentina, the Netherlands, Singapore and Brazil.

Media Contacts:
Ami Brophy, 212.643.1440, [email protected]
Mimi Martinoski, Advertising: 416.827.0537, [email protected]
Maggie Hohle, Design: 973.668.9446, [email protected]

About the ADC
Founded in New York in 1920 as the first creative collective of its kind, the Art Directors Club, Inc. is a 501[c]3 not-for-profit organization with an international membership in advertising, design and related visual communications disciplines. ADC’s core program—the international Annual Awards competition, exhibition and Art Directors Annual—is now in its 87th year and remains unrivaled as an educational and industry resource. ADC’s signature initiatives also include ADC Young Guns biennial showcase of promising professionals age 30 and under; the ADC Hall of Fame; Saturday Career Workshops for talented city high school juniors; Designism, connecting designers to social causes; scholarships, exhibitions, speaker events and symposia, and original books and publications.