TAI Students Win 10 ADDY Awards in District Contest

Last updated April 14, 2021 at 12:37 p.m.

On the heels of their record-breaking 22 wins in the local American Advertising Federation ADDY Awards competition, Temerlin Advertising Institute students set a new personal best at the district level, winning 10 awards – four Gold, three Silver and three Bronze – in the four-state District 10 competition in early April. The Gold and Silver district winners will now move up to the national competition in June – a record of seven nationally eligible entries for SMU.

The district winners had all previously won awards at the local Dallas ADDY competition in March (see story below). This year for the first time, the local Bronze winners were allowed to compete at the district level.

A television campaign for 23andMe by Meredith Welborn and Luke Lockwood, which won both a Gold award and Best of Show at the local competition, won Gold at the district competition.

Also winning district Gold awards were Ethan Rios for copywriting in his campaign for Nair for Men, and Grace Peek for her All-Terrain Poison Ivy Cream campaign, which won an ADDY in two different categories: poster campaign and magazine campaign. Both campaigns had won Silver awards in the local competition.

TAI’s three district Silver awards were for an outdoor & transit ad campaign for Nair for Men by Ethan Rios; a poster campaign for Fight the New Drug by Meriel Upton; and art direction for 23andMe by Meredith Welborn and Luke Lockwood. All three had won Bronze awards in the local contest.

The District 10 competition includes entries from professional agencies and colleges throughout Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma that won awards in their respective local competitions. The district contest is the second of three tiers of the annual national ADDY Awards. At the third tier, the national level, student entries are eligible for a finalist certificate, a national Student American Advertising Award for first-place winners, and a $1,000 cash prize for the national Best of Show winner.

Judging for the district contest was held virtually due to the pandemic. Judges were Gil Arevalo, lead creative at Harley-Davidson, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Matt Hanson, director of digital marketing strategy at Digital Helium, LLC, Saint John, Indiana; John McCafferty, president and creative director of McCafferty Advertising, Louisville, Kentucky; and Allison Robbins, CEO and owner of Aspect 6 Creative, Muncie, Indiana.

The TAI district winners were as follows:

GOLD (4)

Copywriting // Ethan Rios // Nair for Men

Television Campaign // Meredith Welborn and Luke Lockwood // 23andMe

Out-of-Home Poster Campaign // Grace Peek // All-Terrain Poison Ivy Cream

Magazine Ad Campaign // Grace Peek // All-Terrain Poison Ivy Cream

SILVER (3)

Outdoor & Transit Ad Campaign // Ethan Rios // Nair for Men

Out-of-Home Poster Campaign // Meriel Upton // Fight the New Drug

Art Direction // Meredith Welborn and Luke Lockwood // 23andMe

Watch Ad Video

BRONZE (3)

Guerrilla, Installations and Events // Olivia Childs // Feel Better

Television Single// Sophie Vos and Sharese Rivait // Marshall Amps

Social Media Campaign // Maria Archundia and Maggie Sloan // Dallas Museum of Art

Students at the Temerlin Advertising Institute (TAI) at SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts won a record 22 medals in the Student category of the 58th annual American Advertising Federation (AAF) American Advertising Awards local competition, hosted virtually by AAF-Dallas on March 11. The trophies are known as the ADDYs.

SMU students won the Student Best of Show award, three Gold awards, seven Silver awards and 11 Bronze awards. According to available AAF records, their achievement set a new record of wins by one school in the Dallas competition and beat SMU’s former record of 15 wins, set in 2010.

In addition, Temerlin Associate Professor Mark Allen was named Educator of the Year by the Dallas chapter.

“In the midst of a very difficult year of quarantines, online classes, and various cancellations, our creative students proved their resilience and exceptional talent,” said Allen. “Since the big ADDY awards gala was canceled this year, we hosted a small, socially distanced, outdoor awards ceremony with the students who were in Dallas. The AAF also surprised us in-person by hand-delivering balloons and trophies—dressed in bright yellow hazmat suits, no less!

“All of our Silver, Gold and Best of Show winners qualify to advance to the District 10 AAF competition in April, which will showcase top student work from throughout Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. We look forward to their continued achievements!”

The SMU winning entries were as follows:

STUDENT BEST OF SHOW

• CLIENT: 23andMe
• CATEGORY: Television Campaign
• CREDITS: Meredith Welborn and Luke Lockwood

GOLD AWARDS

• CLIENT: 23andMe
• CATEGORY: Television Campaign
• CREDITS: Meredith Welborn and Luke Lockwood

• CLIENT: Philip Johnson’s Architectural Works
• CATEGORY: Book Design
• CREDITS: Charlie O’Brien and Harris Smoots

• CLIENT: Darkness
• CATEGORY: Book Design
• CREDITS: Anna Rose Corell and Rani Vestal

SILVER AWARDS

• CLIENT: Match.com
• CATEGORY: Logo Design
• CREDITS: Kelsey Sweeney

• CLIENT: All-Terrain Poison Ivy Cream
• CATEGORY: Out-of-Home Poster Campaign
• CREDITS: Grace Peek

• CLIENT: All-Terrain Poison Ivy Cream
• CATEGORY: Magazine Ad Campaign
• CREDITS: Grace Peek

• CLIENT: Band-Aid
• CATEGORY: Guerrilla – Installations and Events
• CREDITS: Olivia Childs

• CLIENT: Visit Mexico
• CATEGORY: Out-of-Home Poster Single
• CREDITS: Maria Archundia

• CLIENT: Nair for Men
• CATEGORY: Copywriting
• CREDITS: Ethan Rios

• CLIENT: Quarantine
• CATEGORY: Book Design
• CREDITS: Daniel Heard and Ellie Pace

BRONZE AWARDS

• CLIENT: 23andMe
• CATEGORY: Art Direction
• CREDITS: Meredith Welborn and Luke Lockwood

• CLIENT: 23andMe
• CATEGORY: Copywriting
• CREDITS: Meredith Welborn and Luke Lockwood

• CLIENT: Boozy Scoop
• CATEGORY: Integrated Brand Identity Campaign
• CREDITS: Daniel Heard

• CLIENT: Boozy Scoop
• CATEGORY: Logo Design
• CREDITS: Daniel Heard

• CLIENT: Dallas Museum of Art
• CATEGORY: Social Media Campaign
• CREDITS: Maria Archundia and Maggie Sloan

• CLIENT: Fight the New Drug
• CATEGORY: Out-of-Home Poster Campaign
• CREDITS: Meriel Upton

• CLIENT: Marshall Amps
• CATEGORY: Television Single
• CREDITS: Sophie Vos and Sharese Rivait

• CLIENT: Nair for Men
• CATEGORY: Outdoor and Transit Ad Campaign
• CREDITS: Ethan Rios

• CLIENT: Texas Beard Co.
• CATEGORY: Illustration
• CREDITS: Olivia Childs

• CLIENT: The Giving Tree
• CATEGORY: Publication Design – Cover
• CREDITS: Chase Hall

• CLIENT: The Shoe Surgeon
• CATEGORY: Out-of-Home Poster Campaign
• CREDITS: Chase Hall

Student Best of Show winners Meredith Welborn and Luke Lockwood said in a joint statement, “We are so honored to have taken home four ADDYs with our 23andMe campaign this year. It was definitely something neither of us expected, but we are so thrilled and very grateful to Temerlin and our professors for pushing us to our full potential!” Their Best of Show entry may be viewed on YouTube.

Hundreds of entries were submitted in the local competition this year from area advertising agencies and universities. Judges of the student entries were Matt Davis, creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi, Dallas; Krista McCrimmon, creative director at Johnson + Sekin, Dallas; John Payne, executive creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi, Dallas; Francisco Rojas, creative director at David&Goliath, Los Angeles; and Yanci Wu, experience designer at AKQA in Portland, Oregon.

The local American Advertising Awards are the first level of a three-tier national competition. Local winners may advance to the district level, and district winners compete in the national American Advertising Awards in June.

The American Advertising Awards are the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition, recognizing and rewarding creative excellence in the art of advertising. Every year almost 35,000 entries are submitted in local American Advertising Awards competitions.

The Student American Advertising Awards, sponsored by the American Advertising Federation and National Ad 2, are a sub-category designed especially for college students. Applicants must be enrolled full- or part-time in an accredited U.S. educational institution.

Established in 2001 in the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU, the Temerlin Advertising Institute for Education and Research is the country’s first endowed institute for the study of advertising. The Institute is named in honor of Liener Temerlin, who was a respected humanitarian and leader in the advertising industry. Offering both B.A. and M.A. degrees, TAI trains students to search for unique solutions in advertising, preparing them for work in advertising agencies, media firms, corporate marketing departments and design studios. In addition to opportunities for a 15-week executive internship, M.A. candidates also study advertising outside the U.S. to further develop global perspective. TAI has established an award-winning track record. Students have earned numerous honors, including two national and four district championships in the AAF National Student Advertising Competition and hundreds of creative awards in prestigious regional, national and international competitions including The One Show, CMYK Magazine and The Art Directors Club of New York.

Learn more about the Temerlin Advertising Institute.