It’s hard to remain humble (Core Value 11: Be Humble) when you walk away from an award ceremony with Best in Show, 3 Gold awards, and about 40 pounds in solid-glass trophies, but we’re going to try our best.
It really is an honor to be recognized to such an extent. We emphasize quality in our work. When we do a project—website, software, app, marketing campaign—we do it to the best of our abilities. No cutting corners, no compromises. It’s flattering to be reminded that it doesn’t go unnoticed.
The American Advertising Awards, hosted by AAF Cedar Valley, were held on Friday. We submitted 5 projects and were honored to receive 4 top awards.
Mortgage MarketSmart – Best of Show
The judges awarded the integrated Mortgage MarketSmart marketing campaign (read more about it) the Best of Show honor. Pretty self-explanatory, the Best of Show award goes to the entry that impresses the judges the most. And, not to over explain, but only 1 project per year gets it. Pardon us while we blush for the next, well, forever.
We’re truly honored to hear what the judges thought about the Mortgage MarketSmart campaign. Pretty much everyone at Far Reach touched the project, and we’ve been developing the software with iEmergent for years.
Croell Website – Gold ADDY
The Croell Redi-Mix website won a Gold ADDY in the Digital Advertising – Websites, Consumer category.
One judge said, “Immediately communicates what the company does, with some personality and brand strength.”
That comment makes us beam with pride. We don’t set out to simply make “pretty” websites that do cool things. Every day we work to communicate our clients’ brands. A website is the first stop for customers wanting to learn about an organization online, and it’s our goal that every Far Reach website makes a positive first impression and drives business goals.
Scratch Cupcakery Website – Gold ADDY
Scratch Cupcakery’s website also won a Gold ADDY in the Digital Advertising – Websites, Consumer category. Two Golds in one category!? Yup.
We got the ultimate compliment from the judges on this site: “Makes me want cupcakes.” No additional commentary needed.
Another judge said, “Very consumer friendly and thought-through from how people would want to use the site.”
Again, our sites are about more than the “cool” factor. It’s all about whether they work for the business and its customers. Our team took the time to understand what customers wanted from the Scratch website, and made it happen in a user-friendly way.
Far Reach Holiday Card – Gold ADDY
Our holiday card won a Gold ADDY for Advertising Industry Self-Promotion – Digital Advertising. We put our hearts and souls into our holiday card this year, and we learned a lot along the way (as you’ll recall from our blog post about it).
One judge said, “Seems like the company learned a lot and got to play with parallax, which is an investment in learning new things, which is something I support.”
We’re very understanding of the importance of investing in learning (see Core Value 6: Learn and Grow), however, it’s affirming to know that others appreciate the investment.
The theme of the actual American Advertising Awards event was “Red Carpet.” So in award show style, we’re going to give a little thank-you speech (read while imagining one of the partners slightly teared up).
Thank you. *sniffs* Thanks for letting us do what we do: make awesome stuff using technology. Thank you to our clients—those mentioned above and those not—for trusting us with your projects and giving us projects on which we can innovate. Thank you to all who have helped us along the way—we can’t mention all of you by name, but you know who you are. *music starts* Oh, no, I’m running out of time. Um, we’re so honored to receive these awards. *raises trophy* Reach farther. Accomplish more.
That was intense. Glad we didn’t have to do that live.
All 4 projects are moving on to the district competition. We’ll find out how we stacked up against our District 9 competitors in late March.
