IT’S TIME TO LIGHT THE LIGHTS …: Last night was the third annual black-tie D Awards show at the Max. Unlike most staid awards ceremonies, the audience is always mixture of the raucous theater crowd from “The Muppet Show” and the rowdy disciplinary hearing scene in “Animal House.” Which means it was great, albeit a little R-rated, fun. All that was missing was live chickens and seltzer bottles.
The sound of beer bottles rolling down the inclined aisles and glass wine goblets shattering on the floor lasted for much of the ceremony. Get some booze into advertising creatives and all bets are off.
There was lots of great work and the freewheeling crowd was happy to cheer their competitors and themselves. Team Detroit and Campbell-Ewald took home the most script letter D trophies.
The boys from Ferndale’s Driven Solutions Inc. (I profiled them in 2008) took home several prizes, including a best-in-class in the print category for their campaign for Grand Rapids-based Founders Brewing Co. However, the awards program called them Driven Communications, which is another company altogether. Oops.
A sort of grim undercurrent throughout the show was the sense that that the fun may end at any moment because of the state of the advertising industry — fraught with uncertainty because of the automaker’s woes and Detroit’s problems.