Boca Raton, that is. Swimming pools, movie stars, and a bunch of heavy hitters from the North American advertising community gathered down in sunny Palm Beach County for the American Advertising Federation’s National Conference on Advertising. This big 4-day happening is a great opportunity for Charlotte advertising agencies like birdsong gregory to come together with peers from across the country for lots of education, inspiration, innovation, collaboration, and celebration.

Typically, we don’t spend a lot of time or money schmoozing at industry conferences. Not only can they be a big waste of resources (talking to you, for-profit Path to Purchase Institute — and your innumerable expos, summits, and gabfests with self-proclaimed “experts”), but when you’re a small agency working with big clients, who has the time?

This year is a little different, though, seeing as how we were the only Charlotte marketing agency (and only the second NC marketing agency) to win a Gold ADDY in our district (which includes Virginia, South Carolina, and the Old North State). As such, we’ve automatically been entered into the national American Advertising Awards and, having advanced through the first two tiers of the competition, are eager to find out how we stack up at the national level.

The American Advertising Awards, formerly the ADDYs, is the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition, attracting over 40,000 entries every year in local AAF Club (Ad Club) competitions. The mission of the American Advertising Awards competition is to recognize and reward the creative spirit of excellence in the art of advertising.

And although we didn’t win a two-foot stack of plastic plaques at the local AAF competition held back in February, it’s gratifying to see that quality still trumps quantity. If you’re interested in reading more about the concept behind the work we submitted, please take a look here.