The campaign for the ADC 95th Annual Awards was entitled #RareForAReason, and featured extremely unlikely occurrences, comparing them to the even rarer event of winning an ADC Cube. Organizers couldn’t even have imagined that the rarest event of them all would take place at the Awards Celebration. For the first time in ADC’s near-century long history of awarding the very best in creativity, the top honor, the ADC Black Cube representing Best in Show award — went to a bunch of school kids.
Ah, but these weren’t any ordinary school kids. ADC Black Cube was awarded to School of Visual Arts Computer Art, Animation and Visual Effects students Thaddaeus Andreades, Marie Raoult, Nicholas Manfredi and Elizabeth Ku-Herrero, who under thesis adviser Joe Burrascano created Taking the Plunge, an animated short about a marriage proposal gone wrong.
”Taking the Plunge presents a confluence of extraordinary skill, thoughtfulness, story, heart and dedication brought to life at the very beginning of some young careers,” said Rama Allen, executive creative director, The Mill, who served as chair of the ADC 95th Annual Awards Motion jury. “We would have applauded the remarkable craftsmanship of this piece regardless of how much experience lay behind it, but we felt the rare early talent we saw deserved to be recognized with a commensurate honor. We congratulate the SVA team for some damn good filmmaking that made us laugh, exclaim and even feel a little bit jealous.”
Of course these incredibly gifted young creatives weren’t the only recipients of greater glory of the evening. This year’s top honors, based upon ADC awards won across all categories, went to:
Network of the Year — Leo Burnett Worldwide
Advertising Agency of the Year — BBDO New York, New York, NY, USA
Digital Agency of the Year — R/GA, New York, NY, USA
Design Agency of the Year — Dentsu, Inc., Tokyo, Japan
Production Company of the Year — Goodoil Films, Paddington, NSW, Australia
School of the Year — School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, USA
Client of the Year — Loterias Y Apuestas Del Estado, Madrid, Spain
Other noteworthy winners included Leo Burnett Madrid, Leo Burnett Melbourne, The Martin Agency and Venables Bell & Partners with two Gold each, and Goodby Silverstein & Partners with six ADC Cubes, including one Gold. This year’s ADC 95th Annual Awards winners represent 25 countries, reflecting the program’s global stature.
All the winners can be seen here.
