Your ANDYs, Pictures and Awkward Moments Galore!

By Matt Van Hoven 

Last night we attended the 2009 International ANDYs at Terminal 5 here in New York. The cocktail party began at 6, transforming wacky creatives into drunken creatives, and snarky bloggers with head colds into photographers. All in all the show went smoothly, save for a few awkward moments courtesy yours truly.

The first was when we moved to snap a photo of TBWA/Chiat spokesman Jeremy Miller. Every time I see Jeremy, I forget what he looks like and then make an ass of myself somehow or other. Last night was no different, because I forgot his name again (in my defense, I’m terrible with names/faces and it was dark). Then later I came back to snap a pic of AdAge associate publisher Allison Arden (note: only because another photog friend had just snapped one and this publisher chick initially told her “no, I’m not doing any more photos tonight”. What? I know, right? So naturally my friend and I wanted to f*ck with this chick because come on lady, get over yourself. She’s the one pictured with Jeremy.) and said to Jer, “Man, get this chick to let me take her picture”, because she told me “no” the same way she told my friend. And Jer goes, “Matt, you just took one.” Lame! I wanted another, OK?

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Anyway, Miller is always a sport about my gaffes &#151 like the time I liveblogged the Pepsi SuperBowl press conference and had no idea who he was when he grabbed my shoulder awkwardly and I got a weird vibe. So naturally I say in the liveblog, “who the hell is Jeremy Miller and why is he mugging on me?” Yeah, then he read said comment because he’s smart and knew I was liveblogging. Oy.

Truth told, Miller is a nice guy and takes our wonky interactions in stride.

Anyway enough about all that. The ANDYs were fun, easy to digest, and reminded us why we love this business. The work we saw was phenomenal. In particular we liked Droga5’s “The Million” campaign, which put cell phones in the hands of the 1 million NYC students. The catch, as you may know, is that the phones don’t work during school hours and the kids are given incentives to study, get good grades etc. You know, movie tickets, clothes etc &&#151 stuff kids like.

We also love Droga’s “The Great Schlep”. We can’t watch that one enough. And of course who did we see at the show but JWT’s mad crew Armando Flores, Sara Worthington and Bee Reynolds. We’ve been talking about these three for awhile now, and it’s time you take notice. They were among the youngest guns at the show and they took home a bronze (check the slideshow for pics of their ANDYs making out). They’re hot, as in getting noticed, and we want to have sex with them. Jus’ kidding, but for real keep your eyes open for these kiddies.

Also in attendance were Ty Montague and Rob Rasmussen who is ginormously tall and still kinda sporting the faux-hawk. OK fine, we’re be-mustached &#151 and yes it’s legit despite looking fake.

And the ANDYs went to…

The Grandy: Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Oasis Dig Out Your Soul &#151 In The Streets. This campaign was pretty slick &#151 BBH got a bunch of NYC street performers together, gave them unreleased music from Oasis and said, “go forth and play it on the streets” and it worked pretty well. Two of those bands were at the show last night, playing the Oasis tunes. Twas cool.

The rest of the winners would have taken forever to copy/paste and we’ve got things to do, so click here to see the rest of your winners.

Thanks to the Ad Club for inviting us, and to MediaPost’s Kelly Samardak for paling around with us as we tried to learn about this whole photography thing. How’d we do? Check out the slideshow to see your friends getting tipsy.

More:
Liveblogging the Most Valuable Retail Brand Awards

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