We love what we do every day here at Big Communications.
But some days are bigger than others. Last night was one of those days, as we celebrated a monumental 2013 year (the biggest in our agency’s history) by taking home a total of 29 ADDYs at the 56th Annual Birmingham Advertising Awards.
Our rebranding campaign for Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q—one of the premier barbecue restaurants in the South—was the big winner of the night, bringing home Best of Show on the strength of seven total awards.
A couple of our team members were honored individually as well. Matt Lane Harris won Creative Director of the Year and Blake Hicks won Interactive Developer/Art Director of the Year. It was the second straight year for a Big employee to take home each of those awards, with Aaron Gresham and Shannon Harris (respectively) passing the torches.
Alongside Jim ‘N Nick’s, Big brought home awards for our work on Brookwood Women’s Center, Alabama Department of Commerce, Veterans Day, Alabama Gulf Seafood, Dixie Fish Company, Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau, The Collins Bar, Go Build Alabama, Disruption, and our own brand identity messaging.
“We have the distinct pleasure of working with some of the best brands in the South and that’s something that we all take to heart,” said Big Communications President John Montgomery. “I am incredibly proud of our team and what we have accomplished.”
While it’s fun to enjoy the fruits of our labor, it’s important to take a step back, understand how we got to this point, and prepare to outdo ourselves this year.
Our focus on Southern brands has become a defining factor in our agency identity. Almost all of us were born and raised here in the South, we live and breathe the culture that these clients strive to channel. And with every Southern brand we add to our roster, our tools only become sharper.
Much of our success in 2013 came from our interactive prowess; in fact, our work swept the interactive categories at this year’s ADDYs, thanks in part to the responsive design and GPS technology featured at jimnnicks.com.
“We’ve pushed ourselves extremely hard into the digital space in the last two years,” said Chief Creative Officer Ford Wiles. “And this year’s awards were a welcome recognition of that effort.”
But the thing that truly allows all of our successes to happen is our culture. On the strength of our three core brand values (Young, Hungry, and Wide Open), we’ve built a team that breaches the boundaries of creativity (in every department) and doesn’t stop working until we’ve found the perfect answer.
We think Ford said it best: “I fully credit the culture at Big for our recent successes. We’ve been able to build an amazing group of doers and thinkers that believe in what we do and push each other to do it better, every day.”
We’ve said it before, but now more than ever, we’re incredibly thankful to have clients and partners that allow us to do what we do—and love what we do. And now that the Birmingham ADDYs have passed, we’re incredibly excited to see what happens at the Regional ADDYs, hosted right here in Birmingham [April 10-13].
Check out the list below to see what ADDYs we pulled in last night, including 13 Gold ADDYs, 13 Silver ADDYs, Best of Show and 2 individual awards.
