AADC Awards wrap up 2020

Let’s be honest, 2020 has been weird as fuck so far and just when you think we were getting to whatever the fuck ‘Covid normal’ means, along came the AADC awards and seriously, what the fuck just happened?

Well, I’ll tell you what didn’t happen: with the exception of one thing entered into 2,000 different categories which reminded me of that time KWP! won everything including the chook raffle for a Coopers billboard or something, we didn’t give any awards to anyone for what feels like the 19th consecutive year.

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And yeah yeah we know they say getting a finalist is like getting an award but not really and that’s why we call it a finalist which is exactly not like getting an award in the same way winning silver is exactly not like winning gold.

So who did win what? Here’s the Cliff Notes lowdown:

Let’s start with the easy bit: John McLaren formerly of everywhere but most recently Black Sheep was awarded the president’s award/watering can, and fair enough. He’s done heaps of over and above shit in his time, certainly more than I ever have or will, so solid choice. Sadly, John had Covid or a runny nose or perhaps a UTI and was a last minute no-show and fuck that must suck the big one. Maybe he can give a speech next year? Poor bastard. Also, get well soon John.

The Master’s Chair for best crafty thing went to Pat Parisi from Simple Integrated Marketing who, after winning 729 separate awards for the Rundle Mall stuff in pretty much every possible category, and even some that weren’t possible, made it way less than surprising then the fact Lot100 knocked the food out of the park. Big ups to Lot100 in that department. If there was an award for best food at an awards show from the last 20 years, they definitely would have been a finalist, and Pat Parisi would have won the award.

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The Gold Chair for best advertising thing went to TBWA for their #BookThemOut campaign which was a campaign asking people to book holidays in South Australia after the bushfires and before South Australia was the only place we could book holidays.

And new this year was the Client Choice award presented by the ever so handsome, pocket square wearing, Brent Hill who presented the award to… himself! With the #BookThemOut campaign picking up that gong as well.

As far as overall winners go, I think it’s fair to say football was the winner on the night and almost everyone else was The Crows. But at least the food was good.

The actual tally was Simple Integrated Marketing: everything. Everyone else: sweet fuck all.

Or more accurately, Simple Integrated Marketing 9 awards, with TBWA, CAMPFIRE, The Rowdy Group and Showpony picking up one award each.

While TBWA, CAMPFIRE, KOJO, KWP!, NATION and JAMES all failed to pick up a lowercase letter.

(The only other awards went to Astbury Audio, Heesom Casting, KOJO and Seeingsounds. And thank fuck Pat Parisi doesn’t have a recording studio is all I can say.)

And some other people got some finalists… (Showpony got 15, followed by Rowdy with 11. With an honourable mention for Hybrid/Crew grabbing 7 finalists despite being the latest business to get Robbed. CORRECTION: Nope, not accurate, there’s been one more after Hybrid. My bad. Hard to keep count sometimes.)

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For what it’s worth, Lot100 was a pretty great venue even if it may have been a tad inconvenient having to catch buses out there. Thanks to Covid-fucking-19 it was also weird that you couldn’t stand up with a drink or dance but let’s not be ungrateful, we’re not Victoria.

As far as controversy goes, all I’ll say is why the fuck do the design judges give out awards and the advertising judges are all up themselves assholes who think nothing is good enough? Is it because nothing is actually good enough? Are we just better at design and audio production and… casting? So that stuff wins awards but we only produced like two fucking ad campaigns in the entire state last year that were worthy of a gong? Like I said, maybe that’s just the reality of it. And maybe we do more ‘other stuff’ than ads these days which is why we have categories for things like AR and VR and WhatevR. But just an observation that if we keep up the habit of fucking over every agency that enters ads, my guess is it’ll be the ADC soon enough and we’ll have the flipside of what happened a few years ago when Design Houses stopped entering because why the fuck would ad agencies enter the award-less awards? Just saying. And now, just shutting up.

It’s also worth mentioning it was quite fucking late when I wrote this and some of these facts may or may not be accurate and bad luck.

Full list of winners:

Simple Integrated Marketing       Master’s Chair, 9 Awards, 2 Finalists

TBWA\Adelaide                               Gold Chair, 1 Award, 2 Finalists

Astbury Audio                               2 Awards

CAMPFIRE                                        1 Award, 2 Finalists

Heesom Casting                               1 Award, 1 Finalist

KOJO                                                   1 Award, 5 Finalists

The Rowdy Group                            1 Award, 11 Finalists

Seeingsounds                                    1 Award, 5 Finalists

Showpony Adelaide                         1 Award, 15 Finalists

Hybrid/Crew                                      7 Finalists

Fuller Brand Communication        5 Finalists

KWP!                                                   5 Finalists

Parallax                                             4 Finalists

Influx Creative                                  3 Finalists

The Sideways Theory                       3 Finalists

The Audio Embassy                         2 Finalists

Firebox Films                                     2 Finalists

JAMES                                                 2 Finalists

Michael Tessari                               2 Finalists

NATION                                              2 Finalists

SA Casting                                         2 Finalists

Toolbox Graphic Design                 2 Finalists

Martins Brand House                      1 Finalist

Mattrixx Audio                                  1 Finalist

On Social                                           1 Finalist

Run Wild Productions                     1 Finalist

Sparkl                                                 1 Finalist

Visualizm                                          1 Finalist