Seed Brings Home Six ADDY Awards

The growth acceleration firm Seed Strategy won six ADDYs at this year’s Cincinnati ADDY award competition. Conducted by the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the ADDYs recognize and reward creative excellence in the advertising industry.

Attracting more than 40,000 local entries every year, it is the industry’s largest and most representative competition.

“The Fire Theft Project: Conversations On Creativity,” an interview series published by Seed, received a gold ADDY for its convention-breaking text-free cover. As Seed’s Chief Creative Officer Robert Cherry explained, the team specifically designed the cover with digital distribution and promotion in mind.

“Descriptive copy of some sort typically surrounds the cover image in the contexts in which the magazine needs to promote itself, so we opted to forego cover copy altogether and let a strong image and distinctive logo speak for itself,” said Cherry. “As a result, the cover still works as a selling tool—standing out amongst the miniaturized covers of traditional publications on Apple Newsstand—while also retaining its aesthetic beauty once opened.”

“The Fire Theft Project” also received two silver ADDYs: one for promotional matchbook-style notepads bearing the legend “Great ideas can strike anywhere,” and one for a banner-ad teaser campaign featuring a signature flaming tablet. Back to the Treehouse, Seed’s creativity workshop, also received two silver ADDYs, for its logo design and the copywriting featured in its promotional video. Finally, “The Accelerator,” Seed’s online newsletter, received a silver ADDY for online publication. All six of Seed’s winning entries will move forward to compete against other markets in the district competition.

“It’s great to be recognized by your peers, of course, especially alongside so much really amazing work by all the other talented people in town. The student work alone was fantastic,” said Cherry. “For us, it was really great encouragement for three passion projects that are all relatively new. It’s been a fun and fulfilling adventure thus far.”

To learn more about the AAF Cincinnati and the ADDY awards, visit aafcincinnati.org.