NDAC joins the ADCD to bring Josh Spear to Denver

The ADCD is bringing Josh Spear to Denver to do a talk entitled "The Future of Advertising is not Advertising." The creative pod of the NDAC is co-sponsoring. Mark your calendar for Thursday, November 15.

Liveblog: NDAC planning session

8:53 a.m. I am at the NDAC's planning meeting. It's an all-day funfest of pod updates and work sessions. There are about 25 people from Karsh, Cactus, TTD and so forth. Got a question or concern? Let me hear it in the comments. I'll try to update throughout the day.

10:29 a.m. Break time. Lots of yapping on the costs associated with running a nonprofit. SWOT analysis. That sort of thing. Apparently the national club wishes we did the ADDYs instead of TD50.

12:20 p.m. Please let lunch come soon. I gave a little speech on the state of the Creative Pod, which was mostly babbling about TD50. Gave thanks to Texture, Pure and Amatucci, among others.

2:02 p.m. Group breakouts. How do we increase relevance to members? Does the pod structure add value or just confuse everyone? How can we help students, causes and job seekers?

ADCD photos online

Photos from the ADCD award show are at Bryce Boyer Productions. Now then, would you rather check out Norm's happy face or Creative Sourcebook's seriously hot, mostly naked models?

The idea still rules

From Sally Hogshead via The Denver Egostist:

We're entering a new renaissance, one with more creative opportunities than ever before, a time when "idea" is no longer synonymous with a 30-second TV spot. Yet in our rush to conquer new media, true insights are often becoming an afterthought. Especially among clients. We're at risk of going to an opposite extreme, throwing out the baby with the 30-second bathwater. As we're exploring various mobile-platform-this and Facebook-application-that, there's only a fraction of time and energy left over to spend on a little thing I'll nostalgically call "the concept."

Sounds about right to me.

TBWA\Chiat\Day house ad

Agency Spy points to the house ad for Karsh\Hagan network agency TBWA\Chiat\Day at Adverganza. Said house ad directs to the TBWA\ site everybodyslovingadvertising.com, which simply states, "You are a loser."

Gamekillers premieres tonight on MTV

Why am I blogging this? Maybe because Bartle Bogle Hegarty executive creative director Kevin Roddy judged The Denver 50. Which makes us BFF.

But there's another reason Gamekillers is worth talking about. It's an example of a big idea - the sort of idea that TD50 was designed to reward. It's more than just a three-spot campaign. It's an intricate web of sites and print and now a TV show that has inspired wikipedia entries and blog postings and buzz all over. Gamekillers is a good example of where advertising is in the year 2007. Oh, and it looks funny as hell, too.

2007 ADCD award show

The Art Directors Club of Denver gives good award show. Always has. Last night was no exception.

The big winners in the ad categories were Cactus and Integer. Some other shops also took home multiple awards, like John Amatucci, Vermillion, Lee Reedy and Pure Brand.

In his opening remarks, club president James Pelz said some nice things about the New Denver Ad Club, of which I'm an overactive member. I want to return the favor. When we were planning TD50, we started by agreeing that ADCD was already doing a killer multi-discipline show. We didn't see any point in duplicating their efforts. So TD50 partially owes its structure to the ADCD. There's no excuse for agencies not to enter both shows.

Be that as it may, my agency sat out this year. But Thomas Taber & Drazen, where I worked up until last month, entered a couple things. And our - or is it "their," now? - 2006 print campaign for Colorado Farm Bureau Insurance took home silver and judge's choice awards. Stephen Curry, creative director of Lewis Communications wrote:

What makes this campaign refreshing is the simple credit it gives the reader for his/her own intelligence.

The best part of working on the campaign came after we sent final art out out to dozens of community newspapers across the state. We got media reps calling us to tell us our files were screwed up. The photo was too small. The headline was missing. That sort of thing. We had to reassure them that the files were fine. And our client deserves heaps of praise for saying yes to a very quiet campaign.

So it was a good night. And a tough act for the TD50 award show to follow.

Get another take on the evening from The Denver Egotist.

TD50 Dec. 6 (and other award show notes)

• TD50 judging is supposed to end on September 14. But it won't. Because just like nearly all of our entrants needed an extension, the judges need a few extra days to finish voting. It's a lot of work to get through, and our judges are some of the best - and busiest - creative directors in America.

• The show book will debut on December 6 at the first-ever Denver 50 award show. Trust me when I say the event will not resemble your basic rubber-chicken, sit-down, emceed affair.

• If I could do the submission process over again, I'd have done two things differently. I'd have specified RGB instead of CMYK files. And I'd have given agencies the option to upload film to YouTube and send us the link, instead submitting Flash or Quicktime files.

• This news had to break eventually. I might as well do it here. Crispin did not enter TD50. They'd indicated they would. And we were so excited to have them. But for reasons that weren't communicated to me, they opted to sit out this year.

• Two sneak preview photos from The Denver 50 cover shoot are on our Facebook page. If you're a Colorado marketing-type, please consider joining the group.

• Last week, I dropped by Coffee Friday to see if any of Denver's account planners wanted to weigh in on TD50. Most everybody thought the show concept sounded great. (Or at least, that's what they said to my face.) Some were suprised to hear they could have submitted a strategy or insight as an idea in itself. Personally I think the best ideas are insightful plans backed up by creative media buys and killer executions. But there was nothing in the rules that defined what an "idea" was. Assuming the show is a success and the community prefers it to doing the ADDYs, I think that in 2008 we'll see even more entries and an even broader definition of the word "idea."

More blog buzz for TD50

From Agency Spy:

If Cannes, is well Cannes, then The New Denver Ad Club 50 competition might be like Sundance - for people in Colorado that is... It's a free for all with judges picking what they like, just because they like it. Kinda neat actually. The fifty winners get placed in the Denver50 show book and that's about it.

And The Denver Egotist:

Hopefully, the work is stunning that wins. Hopefully, the judges decide to re-title the show The Denver 167 because they can't disregard a single entry in the mix. Hopefully, we'll have heaps of reporting to do when we're holding the winners' book in our hands in the coming weeks. Hopefully.