There are small Ad Fed events, there are larger Ad Fed events and then there is The Show. The Advertising Federation of Minnesota’s The Show event this year was themed “The Passive and Aggressive,” and did not disappoint as many from the Twin Cities’ advertising community gathered at Mill City Nights on November 9th.
The unique building layout at Mill City Nights provided multiple levels of entertainment and enthusiasm. On the first floor was the photo booth (operated by Tom Thulen of Tom Thulen Photogrpahy), where attendees could dress in many forms of costume: hats, masks, various plastic weapons while being photographed. These were enough to bring out anyone’s inner aggressor.
The Stratford Companies had a booth and was handing out goodie bags with four different phrases on them: Bullsh*t, WTF?!, Needs Improvement and Unaccepted.
There were tables adorned with delicious items presented by Crave, including: caprese skewers, mini tacos, pita and hummus with different spreads. A second course was served a few hours later: potato bites, pinwheel wraps, mini Crave burgers and coconut curry satay. The final course concluded with: truffle pops, chocolate tulip cups and my personal favorite, cake pops. To feed the estimated hundreds of attendees on hand the food wasn’t far out of reach and there was more than enough to calm and bring out a person’s passivity.
Beyond the food, the real reason for the gathering of this event lay on black panels: the fantastic variety of advertisements and creative work that had been submitted for this year’s The Show. Twelve different categories were recognized: Print, Cultural/Education, Student, Broadcast, Cause, Integrated, Self-promotion, Alternative/Guerilla, Illustration, Graphic Design, Digital Media and Photography. Not to be outdone, each was accompanied by a well-dressed figure with a snarky comment. One example for the Student category: “What an honor. It really should soften the blow of pending unemployment.”. Above the printed ads was a large screen, displaying the winners of each category throughout the latter part of the night.
Finally, in the basement of Mill city Nights were the coveted The Show award pins. There were many winners of gold, silver and bronze pins. The top winner was Brad Harrison of Carmichael Lynch who walked away with 32 pins. The Mono agency left the building with 31 pins. Also, Ellie Anderson of Carmichael Lynch garnered 26 pins.
The fanfare may have died down and the pins carried home, but one thing is for sure: Mill City Nights, the attendees, Crave and Ad Fed made The Show of 2012 a memorable experience.
