What is the American Advertising Awards - Washington DC Competition?
The mission of the American Advertising Awards - Washington DC competition is to recognize and reward creative excellence in the art of advertising. The American Advertising Awards - Washington DC are the first step in the American Advertising Federation’s three-tiered national competition. Winners from the local level compete in District Two (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Washington, DC); those winners go on to compete in the AAF national competition. Entering the American Advertising Awards - Washington DC is the first step toward winning a national American Advertising Award.

The American Advertising Awards is the advertising industry's largest and most representative competition, attracting over 50,000 entries every year in local American Advertising Awards competitions. The American Advertising Awards represent the true spirit of creative excellence by recognizing all forms of advertising from media of all types, creative by all sizes and entrants of all levels from anywhere in the world. It is the only creative awards program administered by the advertising industry for the industry. Because it begins at the local level, the American Advertising Awards competition offers entrants an opportunity to compete with their true peers – not only those across the country, but across the street.

2014 Judges

Onsite

Michael Bettendorf
Freelance Copywriter/Creative Director
San Francisco, CA

Michael Bettendorf has been a copywriter for more than 23.78 years. After graduating from Berkeley with a seemingly useless degree in English, he stumbled into a copywriting job at Crispin, Porter, & Bogusky in Miami, working in a tiny creative department that was Chuck Porter, Alex Bogusky, and one other writer, Mary MacPhail.  Four years later he moved back to the Bay Area to take a job at J. Walter Thompson working on Sprint, Nortel, and the California Lottery.  Four years later (the four-year pattern ends here) he took a job at McCann-Erickson/SF working on the Microsoft account, which he continued doing for a whopping and possibly idiotic 12+ years.  Since then he has freelanced at Wieden + Kennedy, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, JWT/NY, and other agencies across the country. He grew up in Iowa, if that makes a difference.

Kevin Gammon
Executive Creative Director/Owner, SA-5
San Francisco, CA

Greg Mills
Creative Director, Team Detroit
Dearborn, MI

Greg Mills was digital back when animated gifs were a thing (the first time they were a thing). He has produced award-winning (and non-award winning) digital and traditional work for Ford, Microsoft, HP, Sun Microsystems, Apple and 10,000,000 dot coms. A San Francisco Bay Area native, he works on digital stuff for Ford at TeamDetroit out Michigan way. 

Chris O’Brien
Associate Creative Director, archer>malmo 
Memphis, TN

Robin Stice
Senior Art Director, IOMEDIA
New York, NY

Interactive

Lucas Peon
Chief Creative Director, Possible World Wide Cincinnati
Cincinnati, OH

Tracy Beach
Chief Creative Officer, Portent Interactive Seattle
Seattle, WA

As Portent's CCO, I provide top-down leadership to multiple divisions within the company, while also helping facilitate client strategies, attract new business and maximize internal efficiencies. I've played an integral part in developing Portent's design and interactive division over my 13 years in the industry. 

Jacob Ford
Executive Creative Director, Hoffman Lewis San Francisco
San Francisco, CA

Jacob recently joined H&L Partners as the Digital Creative Director in the SF office. Since christening his advertising career at Foote Cone & Belding, he has logged time at Publicis, Organic and McCann. Throughout, Jacob has worked to be a catalyst for integrating agencies—helping to produce award-winning campaigns that blend both traditional and digital disciplines. This was primarily the case at ATTIK, where Jacob oversaw Scion, Lexus, Boost and Under Armour as the Digital CD. With over 16 years in the industry, and a few amazing clients, Jacob has pulled in a few awards that he’s comfortably packed somewhere in his garage. On the outside, Jacob enjoys spending time with his family, walking around SF and tweeting (though not simultaneously).  

Andrew Payton
Creative Director, R/GA New York
New York, NY

2013 American Advertising Awards - Washington DC Competition Information

Click here view the full list of winners by category.

Past ADDYs

2012 DC Ad Club ADDYs
2011 DC Ad Club ADDYs
2010 DC Ad Club ADDYs
2009 DC Ad Club ADDYs
2008 DC Ad Club ADDYs