A one-person company took home the Best of Show award at the 2023 American Advertising Awards program, as the Fort Worth advertising community honored entries from 27 different agencies and 63 students.
The Best of Show honor went to N8 Visuals Inc. for a series of short videos for Kimbell Art Museum as it celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Titled “Kimbell Stories,” the videos show people sharing stories of interacting with the museum. The award caught owner Nick Utter by surprise.
“I’m a single-person digital production company, so that’s really cool,” he said. “I keep my overhead low. I have a lot of great subcontractors that I work with consistently, and we craft each production to fit each budget.”
Utter started about a year ago working on the documentary series that features five people who share their story of interacting with the storied museum.
“I’m so thankful that the Kimbell let me run with it on the visual side,” he said.
One of the videos features Alexandra Farber, a dancer with the Texas Ballet Theater.
“She’s actually performing in front of a lot of the works at the Kimbell, which is great,” he said.
“There’s some different looks in each one, and this is sort of a fun story to tell.”
There were 20 gold, 29 silver and 31 bronze awards given out at the Feb. 24 event.
A big winner at the event was footwear brand Twisted X, which won seven gold Addy awards, four silver, two honorable mentions and a special Best of award in the interactive category. This was only the second time the Decatur-based footwear brand had entered its work in the program.
“I’ve got a tight, lean team of four with a ton of experience,” said Tricia Mahoney, chief marketing officer. “We’re an in-house agency and the team is unbelievably talented and the work speaks for itself.”
The student Best of Show went to Tommy Torres of the University of Texas at Arlington.
Warren Cook, owner and creative director of Make Something Beautiful, was responsible for putting together this year’s show. Make Something Beautiful won the Best of Show award in 2022 for its “Where You Belong” campaign for Texas A&M University.
2023 Addy Awards
Best of Show
N8 Videos
“Kimbell Stories”
Best Traditional
Zoo Ball: “The Wild One” Invitation
Best Interactive
“Black Star: Take the Long Road”
Best Student
Tradio, Purell Ad campaign
Tommy Torres of the University of Texas at Arlington
The show, which had a theme centered around Fort Worth’s Funkytown nickname, was held at the Southside Preservation Hall in the Near Southside and emceed by local personality Tony Green. Several local musicians also performed. Green performed a reworked version of “New York, New York,” using “Fort Worth, Fort Worth,” for the chorus.
“I live here. This is my heart,” said Cook. “I wanted to bring that to the advertising community.”
Another musician performing was Ginny Mac, a singer and accordionist from Fort Worth. Cook did a music video for her several years ago, filmed in the Near Southside.
“That video just blew up, and it was great having her here and the other local musicians,” Cook said.
Cook said he was proud of the winners this year.
“Fort Worth has got creatives like you can’t believe,” he said. “It’s just giving them this moment here to feel proud of what they do. Because it’s hard stuff, working and doing all this stuff and coming up with the ideas, and then getting recognition is amazing.”
The event is the local version of the American Advertising Awards. The trophies themselves are called Addys, which is how the event is referred to casually. Winners at the local level will be entered in the regional competition.
Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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