The Tampa Bay chapter of the American Advertising Federation hosted their annual awards show a few weeks ago. We took home 37 awards, including three Best of Bays and two Judges Choice awards. It was a very good night for us. In fact, after my final count I determined that we’d won five times as many ADDYs as the next participating agency. That was unexpected, but it still felt good. It made me very proud of my team and confirmed once again that our agency is one of the tops in the Southeast.
I rarely write blog content for my agency. But in the past two weeks, since ADDY night, there’ve been a few discussions about how to announce our wide margin of victory without coming off crass. It got me thinking about winning.
I was raised in a home with three brothers and all we did my entire childhood was compete. Basketball, ping pong, darts, pool, chess, Monopoly, Risk, horseshoes, tennis, volleyball, charades, track, etc. You name it, we played it. And we weren’t playing just to have fun. We were playing to win. We played hard, and when we lost, we wanted another chance to compete so that we might come away with a win. All of us wanted to be on top.
The ad business is the perfect industry for me because it’s a non-stop competition. Your whole existence is about competing, and if you’re good, you’re either winning for your client, your agency or yourself. It never stops. The moment you win or lose, the game begins again. You’re back trying to knock one of your client’s competitors off the block, or create something so extraordinary for your client to win that your entire industry takes note and applauds.
On ADDY night, our agency’s name was mentioned over and over again, and each time my staff sat a little taller in their seats. Here we were, surrounded by our industry peers, the fruits of our labor for the past year being recognized as the best in town. Watching my staff take the stage throughout the evening to accept various Best Of awards was thrilling and filled me with pride. We’d competed as a team, and we’d won as a team. And when you’re playing the game, you can’t ask for much more than that.
– Troy Dunn
To see the full list of awards we took home, check out the press release here.