It's Showtime.
It's the 90th year of The Show, the preeminent awards event that celebrates the work of local advertising agencies hosted by the Advertising Federation of Minnesota.
The Show, which this year has an "Ads in Wonderland" theme, will take place March 11, at 7 p.m., at Aria in Minneapolis. Gold and silver pin winners are eligible to compete for district awards and then could go on to the National Addy awards by the American Advertising Federation in June.
This year was the largest number of agencies ever to submit entries for print, television, radio and digital categories. The 89 total agencies that submitted entries this year was nearly double the number from last year.
"Minneapolis still has it," said Dawn Watz, a strategist for SapientNitro who is co-chair of this year's event. "A wonderful display of smart, strategic, beautiful work … it was clear to all of the judges that Minneapolis continues to be an advertising power-house, but does so with a much bigger heart than other markets."
Despite the large amount of agencies who submitted entries, there were just about 800 entries even with the absence in submissions from the former Mithun agency which was rebranded last month as McCann Minneapolis and the dearth of entries from top ranked firm Olson, said Steve Wallace, president of the Advertising Federation of Minnesota.
For the first time, new separate recognition categories were introduced for this year's event to showcase work that was best of in-house marketers within companies, best of B2B work, best of digital (and another best of digital that will recognize specifically social media) best of design and best of student work. The changes were long overdue, Wallace said.
"[The Show] has really not changed that much since 1926, but think about how much advertising has changed since 1926," Wallace said. "We are trying to be more representative of the market. We're trying to evolve the industry."
