The Idaho Falls Advertising Federation is presenting the 2011 Gem Awards Advertising Banquet on Thursday, February 2nd at the Elk’s Club Lodge in Idaho Falls.

The Casablanca-inspired banquet kicks off with a social mixer at 6:30 p.m., and dinner will be served at 7:00 with the awards ceremony following soon after.

Tickets for the event are $40 per person, $70 per couple or $195 for a table of six.

For questions or to purchase advance tickets, contact Tina at (208) 524-1777 or email her at tina@mightymcs.com.

Save the date – the 2012 Idaho Advertising Federation Rockie Awards Show is coming up on Saturday, April 21st.

Details to follow in due time, but put it on your calendar now. Yes, right now.

*Hangover not included

Update (4-19-11): The complete list of winners, along with the work itself, has been posted on the BAF website.

Think you missed your shot at entering your work in the IMPACT Awards from Capital City Communicators? Think again.

The entry deadline has been extended until Friday, March 11th.

Full details, categories, requirements, costs and more are available on the CCC website.

Save the Date – The Rockie Awards Show is coming up on Saturday, April 16th, 2011 at the Knitting Factory in downtown Boise.

Because this is the point at which I get to say that the Idaho Ad Agencies blog is now the award-winning Idaho Ad Agencies blog.

Bear with me – the boasting will be over soon.

The Idaho Ad Agencies blog recently received an Excellence award at Capital City Communicator’s inaugural IMPACT Awards.  It was one of 31 winners in 15 categories at the event, which also included awards to our friends at Rizen Creative, Red Sky Public Relations, FusionSet, Murphy Media Services, SOVRN Creative and many more.

So with that little bit of bragging out of the way, we offer a hearty congratulations to all of this year’s winners.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled programming already in progress.

And for those who attended, everyone can agree that it was one of, if not the best awards shows that the Boise Advertising Federation and Idaho Advertising Federation has ever put on.  A huge congratulations goes out to Jennie Myers and the entire show committee for putting on a memorable event.  If you see any of them in the next couple of weeks, be sure to thank them for everything they put in to it.

A few highlights:

Silver Medal Award Winner Mike Sanders

Dave Cook and Asa Nims with their acoustic duet.

Jason Hamilton ribbing John Drake for his soap opera name and hair.

George Parker presenting Best of Show (and possibly inspiring a new award that may appear on this site at some point in time – stay tuned).

The after-party at the Red Room.

The Knitting Factory, packed to the gills for a sold-out awards show, with some of the most talented people in this business, all dressed to the nines.

And much, much more.

It really was a great night.

To all of the winners — Well Done.  Rather than try to list them all here, I’ll merely point you to the Rockie Awards website, where you can check out all the winners in the 2010 Rockie Awards Show Winners Book.

As I’ve said many times before, I’d put the work that comes out of the state of Idaho, and the talented folks involved in making it happen, up against anyone else in the country.  This year’s winners are yet another reflection of that.

Congratulations to all.

The entries are in.

The judging is complete.

And now it’s time to have an awards show.

The 2010 Rockie Awards Show is coming up on Saturday, April 24th at The Knitting Factory in downtown Boise. Food and drinks start flowing at 6:00 p.m. and the show gets underway at 7:00.

Tickets are $45 each, or $350 for a table of eight.

Ticket reservations should be sent to rockies@boiseadfed.org. RSVPs are due by or before April 15th. But seriously, get your RSVP in now — rumor has it that the show is more than halfway toward being sold out.

Congratulations to those who won, and we look forward to seeing all the winners revealed at the 2010 Rockie Awards Show.  The show is coming up on Saturday, April 24th.  More details on that front soon.

Judge the Judges.

Come rub elbows with the 2010 Rockie Awards Judges. Buy them a beer. Provoke a dialogue. Challenge their wisdom. Flirt with their egos. Influence their decision making. The judges are Brett Craig of TBWA/Chiat/Day; Victor Camozzi of GSD&M; and Joe Shands of Vendor, Inc.

This BAF Speaker Series event will be a moderator Question and Answer format with the four best questions winning prizes.* To qualify, submit your questions by February 23 to JudgesQ&A@nootgroup.com.

The judging begins at Ha Penny on February 25.
Beverages at 5:30.
Q&A from 6:30-7:30.

* Free entry into the 2010 Rockie Awards.

Now, for everyone else, here are the judges for this year’s show (after the jump):

Brett Craig
In the decade-plus that Brett Craig has worked for TBWA/Chiat/Day in Los Angeles, he has helped launch multiple brands including XM Satellite Radio, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3.  He has helped reinvent and rebrand companies like Pepsi and Ballpark Franks, and has worked with iconic companies like Apple, Energizer and Nissan.  Writing positioning lines, such as “Play Beyond,” for PlayStation, and “Every Generation Refreshes the World,” for Pepsi, is all in a day’s work for Brett.  He is no stranger to awards shows, having received recognition in every major awards show around, including The OneShow, Cannes, D&AD and Communication Arts.

Victor Camozzi
Victor Camozzi is a Group Creative Director and has been with GSD&M Idea City for the past ten years.  Victor’s commercials for Southwest Airlines have been honored with some of the top awards in the industry.  He was a leader in the creative launch of the new AT&T, as well as the merger of AT&T and Cingular. He promoted bipartisan solutions to the health care crisis for AARP.  He’s also worked with BMW, 7-Eleven, the US Olympic Committee, Hallmark, Caesars Palace and more.

Prior to joining GSD&M, Victor was part of a creative advertising start-up in San Francisco and worked in Los Angeles at Ogilvy & Mather on accounts such as Paramount Pictures.

Victor earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Advertising and Philosophy from the University of Idaho.

As a hobby, he recently released an album of Texas-style country songs that went top 10 on the European Americana Charts.  Just like his favorite mythical grunge band “Citizen Dick”, he’s big in Belgium.

Joe Shands
Joe Shands has worked for some extraordinary agencies including Cole & Weber (creating campaigns for Doc Martin), Goodby (where he helped launch “Got Milk”), Wieden & Kennedy (creating campaigns for Nike, Diet Coke, Miller Brewing Co, to name a few), and TBWA/Chiat/Day in Los Angeles (where he redefined Visa).  Joe has now taken his vast knowledge to Austin Texas and has opened the doors to his own agency, Vendor Inc.

Over the years, Joe’s been Adweeks Art Director of the year (he’s now a writer so…so much for that award) and he’s won every award that there is to be won.

Warren Payne
Warren Payne is partner at PayneSpencer, a marketing communications firm in Kent, Washington, that provides PR, advertising, marketing and editorial services for a wide range of clients, including Fluke Corporation, Amprobe Test Tools, Microsoft Learning, Pomona Electronics and Avanade.

With his business partner, Cathy Spencer, he also writes WineBites, a wine blog.

Warren earned a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts/Music from Seattle University and has performed music professionally for many years. He has also worked in marketing positions for several technology companies, including Aldus, Hewlett-Packard, and Real Networks.

Idaho Ad Peeps,

In the year 2010, a noble few are called upon to lead worthy advertising mortals to the Valhallas of Valhallas—an Idaho Advertising Federation Rockie Award.

Woot!

So here’s the deal. Rather than having a few hired guns to host the IAF Rockie Awards, we’re turning to the community to take part in honoring itself. That’s kind of narcissistic and yet, cool.

We need hosts to announce the winners in the various categories. We’re looking for 30 people to be put into pairs of two. Each twosome will hand out the awards for 1 of the 15 different categories.

You can volunteer as a team or the Rockies crew can pair you up with another solo award giver-outer.

Your twosome can write your own witty repartee or you will be provided a script for your introduction with ample room for witty ad libs. The Rockies crew will need to approve submitted scripts for timing and content.

Please feel free to pass this on to others in your shops that you think may be interested as well. It’s open to anyone brave enough to take the stage and their 10-15 minutes of fame.

If you’re interested in being involved in the show and willing to pair up with someone to host a category or have further questions before you’d like to commit please E-mail damundson@drakecooper.com

More details can be found on the original post.

Or, if you’re feeling generous and would like to pay additional fees, the late submission deadline is Friday, February 12th.

Capital City Communicators, a Treasure Valley organization for professional communicators, has announced a Call for Entries for the inaugural IMPACT Awards.

The IMPACT Awards, which stands for Idaho Marketing, PR, and Communication Talent, “offer Idaho communicators a unique opportunity to showcase their work, receive expert feedback and gain peer and industry recognition,” said Jeff Reynolds, CCC president and owner of Rizen Creative.

From the CCC website:

We’re looking for the best and the brightest of 2009 – the marketing or communications project that made heads turn and people take notice. It’s time to show off your great work from the past year and earn recognition among your peers.

Entries will be accepted from Dec. 14, 2009 to Feb. 4, 2010. Award winners will be recognized at the IMPACT Award Recognition event in mid March 2010.

Early entries are due by January 28th, and late entries will be accepted (for an additional fee of course) through February 4th.

Take a moment to put this on your calendar.

Seriously, stop what you’re doing, pull up your calendar, grab your BlackBerry, iPhone, Droid or *gasp* piece of scratch paper and write this down.

The entry deadline for the 2010 Rockie Awards is February 5th, 2010.  Details should be available on the Rockie Awards website soon (if they aren’t already), but in the mean time, start getting your materials together and be ready to submit your entries.

You’ve done good work over the past year.  Now’s your chance to prove it.

And just in case you were wondering what their opinion really was, here’s a short snippet from the piece:

The problem with award shows right now is that although they celebrate creativity, most of the time anyway, they rarely consider context or effectiveness. And often, it’s not possible to really know the effectiveness of a big-budget branding campaign. So at the end of the day, the judging criteria is wide-open.

Take the time to read the entire piece.  Then, whether you agree or disagree, leave a comment and let Felix know.

This year, the PAF decided to have a little fun with the Rosey Awards website, throwing in a little ‘Our City is Better Than Your City’ attitude.

And Boise was one of their targets.

Now, the question to you, dear readers in Boise and beyond: Are you going to put up with this type of verbal abuse?  Should we engage in a war of words with our colleagues in Portland and beyond?

I say no.  And here’s what I suggest you do:

Make it better.  The strategy, the creative, the plan, the placement.  All of it — make it better.

If it’s good, make it better.  If it’s great, make it better.

The year is half over.  Now’s your chance to step it up.

When it comes down to it, the best way to get back at our friends and Portland is through the work.  That’ll be the best way to bitch-slap those granola-loving bike-riding hippies back into their drizzle-dodging cubicle world.

Oh, and PDX folks, nothing but love for you, nothing but love

Curious to see who won where?  Follow the links below for winners and credits in each of the respective categories.

• Silver Medal Award Winner: Russ Stoddard 
• Public Service
• Newspaper
• Identity Programs
• Public Relations
• Out of Home
• Interactive / Multimedia
• Elements of Advertising
• Radio
• Sales Promotion
• Advertising Industry Self Promotion
• Magazines
• Direct Marketing
• Collateral
• Television
• Complete Campaign
• Best of Show

Congratulations to all of the winners.

UPDATE:  Photos from the festivities will soon be available here.

Best of Show – Drake Cooper
Idaho Film Office, Be a Good Scout Handbook
Concept:  Joe Quatrone, Jennie Myers, Sean D. Young
Copy:  Joe Quatrone, Sean D. Young
Art Director:  Jennie Myers
Photography:  Peg Owens
Production:  Cale Cathey
Illustration:  Cale Cathey
Producer:  TableRock Printing