Local professional, student advertising campaigns recognized by AAF

The American Advertising Federation of Cape Girardeau hosted its annual awards ceremony Wednesday evening to recognize outstanding print, online and multimedia advertising in the region.

Held at the Drury Convention Center, this marks the 27th year the organization has hosted the awards ceremony.

Rustmedia of Cape Girardeau brought home several awards, including recognition for multimedia promotion of the annual Shipyard Music Festival and Print Best of Show for flourish magazine. Red Letter Communications Inc also won Best in Show for its multimedia STIHL video for the Holiday Hard to Wrap campaign. Several Southeast Missouri State University students were also recognized, with Racheal Davis taking home Student Best in Show for her Cacti Coffee Shop concept.

Southeast Missourian advertising director Donna Denson of Cape Girardeau was also recognized at the beginning of the night as the organization's Silver Medal Recipient. Her work in advertising and in the Southeast Missouri community were cited by the organization as the outstanding factors that qualified her for the recognition.

Separate categories were awarded for both student and professional advertising, as well as subcategories of print media, online advertising content and multimedia campaigns. Gold, silver and bronze winners took home ADDYs -- the organization's recognition of achievement -- while gold honorees were entered into the upcoming district competition.

Advertisements were judged by a panel of three advertising professionals, AAF president Jaimee Holland said. In advance of Wednesday night's ceremony, she said the judges evaluated 139 professional and 28 student entries; of those professional entries submitted, 61 were in print, 26 were online and the other 51 were multimedia advertisements.

The American Advertising Awards is a national industry competition that gathers some 35,000 advertising entries per year. It offers three tiers of competition -- local, district and national -- to provide opportunity for content creators across the country to compete.