Adam Ritchie Brand Direction was the most winning agency in the country at the Public Relations Society of America’s Anvil Awards, sweeping the communications industry’s most iconic honor in four separate categories.
PRSA recognized the agency’s T.R.I.P. Through The Multiverse campaign, which brought together a band and a brewery in an industry-spanning collaboration that launched a studio album on cans of craft beer. The beer label contained a social media trigger that released the content and added an interactive layer to new music discovery.
The Silver Anvil jury called the project, “a breakthrough idea…compelling and fresh…ingenious planning…dogged pursuit of the objectives…innovative thinking to create a unique product and experience.” It won Marketing for Consumer Products: Packaged Goods, Marketing for Consumer Products: Food & Beverage, Integrated Communications for Consumer Products: Food & Beverage and Most Effective Shoestring Campaign: Business.
“We experimented with a medium and invented a new type of product from the ground up,” said agency principal Adam Ritchie. “Each partner took a risk and it paid off. This is what can be accomplished when PR drives product development.”
“Congratulations to The Lights Out, Aeronaut Brewing Co. and Adam Ritchie Brand Direction for picking up four Silver Anvil Awards for their innovative campaign,” said 2018 PRSA National Chair Anthony D’Angelo, APR, Fellow PRSA. “Releasing an album on a beer, while highly unconventional, proved to be extremely successful.”
This spring, the firm won two PRWeek Awards for Best in Creative Excellence and Best in Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Media, as well as a Holmes Report Innovation and Insights SABRE Award for Brand Content & Creativity. The PRWeek jury called the work, “an outstanding concept and a truly original idea – flawlessly executed…ambitious, brave and non-traditional…this represents the future of our business.”
In the American Business Awards, Adam Ritchie Brand Direction was presented with a Gold Stevie Award for PR Innovation of the Year. The jury called the entry, “absolutely brilliant…takes PR innovation to the next level…extremely well thought out and researched…addresses a shifting market…in touch with the times.”
“It is a joy to celebrate a decade in business with recognition on this level,” said Ritchie. “When a boutique receives these honors, it shows big ideas and hard-hitting execution can come from a practice of any size. Independents are standing shoulder to shoulder with their peers at the world’s largest holding companies and moving the industry forward together.”
The wins contribute to more than 40 distinctions received by Adam Ritchie Brand Direction this year. The agency’s newest creation, a team of pregnant comic book superheroes for Summer Infant, was profiled in ADWEEK, PRWeek and The Washington Post. This fall, Ritchie is expanding his Invention in PR lecture series to reach more than 1,000 students at 50 universities.
