Vin de Set 2014

Friday evening (January 3, 2014) at Vin de Set and Joe Mastroianni is once again playing host. He orders wine and invites conversation but never forgets to communicate important ground rules for AAF Advertising Award Judges. The ADDY Judges are Dan Barczak (Cincinnatti), Malvina Baker (NYC), Rick Riley (Cleveland) and Matt Horton (Minneapolis). Kristy Tucciarone and Wes Morgan round out the table for seven at the restaurant which has become something of a tradition over the past few years.

Dan is Creative Director at Hyperquake, a Brand Evolution Agency in Cincinnati. He has a design background. In another life he might have been a chef he says adding that early on he got shot down when he considered a Military career path (Marine Corps).

Malvina Baker is with Sterling Brands in New York. She surprised the group with a passion for surfing, an avocation that is difficult to pursue from her home base in Brooklyn, NY. She manages to get away to surf periodically and will be traveling to Puerto Rico in a couple of weeks.

Rick Riley is a copywriter turned creative director turned agency principal at MelamedRiley in Cleveland. He’s been thinking about a Children’s Book phonics based concept: part mistake (oops) and part zoo animals, Zoops would introduce children to creatures like the ChimpanZebra and KangaRooster.

Matt Horton of Morsekode in Minneapoplis would have stayed in radio as an on air personality if his early exposure to that career path introduced him to personalities who convinced him it was a bad way to make a living. So advertising, he reasons, (what his Dad did) seems a reasonable way to make a living. Matt is more than an ad guy though. His account of work for a non-profit called Imagine No Malaria dramatically illustrates how he thinks.   

Saturday is all business and start time at 8:00 a.m. at Anheuser Busch cafeteria where UMSL students and Ad Club officials Liz and Jaron have the work ready to view and the software ready to enter scoring. Joe prepared the group for the strategy of completing the review of hundreds of entries to minimize the impact of a Winter snowstorm heading for the Midwest. That being said, the judges came together late in the day with a good deal of consensus on what they saw as the best work. The winners will be announces in February during ADDY Week in St. Louis.  

Photos (top to bottom): Rick Riley, Matt Horton, Malvina Baker, Dan Barczak