Blue Ion and Hook Team Up for Addy Gold!

Deemed the “Oscars of the Advertising World,” this past Saturday evening I attended the 2009 American Advertising Federation Awards ceremony in Washington DC. We were thrilled to accept a Gold Addy Award in this year’s national competition for the Hook website. It was thrilling to see the site win Best in Show at the local level, Best in Interactive at the regional level and finally Gold at the national level.

The event was filled with an impressive list of ad agencies (BBDO New York, DDB, Publicis Worldwide, etc) and we were honored to share the stage with such advertising royalty. However, there existed an underlying current of a David and Goliath type battle. Smaller agencies were making their presence known. They were there to challenge the big guys – to make their mark in the advertising world. This, perhaps, is the greatest part about the Addy Awards. It gives the smaller shops a chance to battle it out with the larger agencies on a national level. One in particular that stood out was the Bounce Agency in Greenville, SC. They collected four Gold Addys for their South Carolina Dept of Parks, Recreation & Tourism campaign. It was a very nice collection of work – congrats! View complete 2009 winners list.

Many thanks to Hook for their collaborative effort – design, asset production, wonderfully written copy, etc. They were willing to join us in unchartered waters (the new world of 3D) and help us push through some challenging times. Cleary Hook’s work is the star of the show and we were fortunate to be tapped for the job of building their site. It is always a pleasure working with them.

I also need to thank the developers of Papervision 3D. Papervision 3D is the 3D rendering engine used to drive the Hook site. Without them none of this would have been possible and our concept would have remained on paper.