The ADCC Awards Show, honouring the best creative work at Directions 2012, was held last night at Koerner Hall on Bloor street in Toronto.  Hundreds of industry leaders and aspiring creatives poured into the Royal Conservatory of Music for the awards and three ad buzz contributors, myself included, were gifted three orchestra seats to enjoy the show.

With all the letters flying at us last night, I’m going to generate some of my own – here are the 22 takeaways from last night, in alpha order of course…

(We’ve already covered ‘A’ above).

BMW – The spot entitled ‘BMW Helipad’ was fun to watch and it won multiple golds for its creativity and art direction:

Creative – All the work was phenomenal.  The visuals that the award organizers put together to accompany each category were certainly the highlights. I’ve included some of my favourites in embedded videos in this post.

DJ – They had a DJ onstage spinning beats during every interlude.  Pretty cool yet some interesting music choices.

@Epic__Bail – The 5’1″ Ad Buzzer, aspiring Copywriter, Humber student and comedienne in our trio of fabulousness last night.

Friends – Here’s a shot of the girls.

High heels –  Painful after a few hours of standing by the bar on Koerner’s stone floor, even in Geox heels that claims to have marshmallow-level padding.

Innovation – The creative innovation was unparalleled.   It’s a proud time to be a Canadian in advertising.

JWT– Represent, what! A few familiar names were announced as winners, way to go guys!

Katona – Diti Katona was awarded the highly regarded Les Usherwood award.  Les’ story is cool, he designed over 200 font faces in the 50s and 60s.  Of the legacy awards doled out last night, Diti’s was the most inspiring.  Starting with a personal and anecdotal introduction from her husband/business partner, they followed up by playing a reel of all of her creative, interspersed with interviews from her closest business contacts and friends. Apparently she swears like a truck driver.  Would’ve liked to have heard a nod to that in her acceptance speech.

Little Trees – The Air freshener campaigns by Red Urban Canada won Gold for Best Cinema Campaign.  LOLs ahead.

MC – Jamie Day, last night’s Master of Ceremonies, was certainly a character.  He had a Ricky Gervais-esque way about him, including the British accent and somewhat laissez-faire attitude towards the hundreds of pairs of eyes waiting for his clever cracks and puns.  Some sounded scripted while most of his other lines were certainly original, spurned from the crickets chirping when a no-show  name was called, or when the music interlude exceeded its ‘shut off when someone starts talking’ cue.

M part 2 – McDonald’s. A must after an event in the Annex.

No-shows – This leads to the story of the no-shows.  I have a theory.  The nominations were short-listed back in July.  They were attendees like the rest of us.  Some of the nominees who attended were crammed up into the third floor balcony, making it a long walk (or fall) down to the stage to accept.  Others never even showed.  During the event overhaul, which I predict will happen this year, they’ll hopefully reserve nominees in orchestra seats and offer discounts or free tickets for them. Just a thought.

@Offbeat_Copy – The third and marvellous member of the triumvirate of Ad Buzz ladies storming the show, Offbeat aka Sophia rocked her coconut bra with class and charm (see below).

Photo booth – Posing by Miami Beach earned us one free drink each!  It’s a tough life for models out there…

Recipients – or ‘no-shows’ were scarce during the show, which became a run-on joke as the night progressed.  Our MC began teasing winners who failed to come down and collect their trophies because they were, presumably, not there, or just shy. Speeches were short and sweet for those who did come down.

Steamwhistle – make that a FREE Steamwhistle – and no, us girls didn’t work our magic to have it bought for us.  We earned that free Steamwhistle fair and square (see Photo Booth post above).

TV Single – Rethink won for this ad, which is just brilliant, culturally relevant and hilarious.

Uprising – there was some sort of protest happening outside the ROM as we left the awards last night.  Somehow, between deciding to go for burgers at McDonald’s to chowing down and leaving, the entire megaphone wielding group on the corner had been cleared away.  Police barricades remained and a few bicycled officers lingered.  I found out what the protest was about here.  Perhaps this was why nominees were late or missing.

Venue – Koerner Hall (K was taken).  The venue is spectacular.  The old building façade of the Royal Conservatory of Music remains enclosed in the newer structure, modern in its windowed walls and stone floors.

Working Dead – At the end of the show, volunteers handed out hard cover books entitled the Working Dead.  A compilation of ADCC honoured-work, the clever title and stunning visuals make for a nice coffee table addition.

Okay, so I missed G, Q, X, Y, Z.  Any suggestions for those letter takeaways, write them in the comments.
Thanks to Ad Buzz for giving these tickets to us and for a great night!

You can find a list of all the winners here, which should be posted today.