CORPUS CHRISTI ̶ The University of Houston-Victoria was recognized Thursday with seven prestigious ADDY Awards for advertising excellence, including a Gold ADDY for the university’s 2017 website redesign.
The awards were handed out at the American Advertising Federation-Corpus Christi Chapter ADDY Awards event at the Solomon P. Ortiz Center.
“Our Marketing & Communications team works hard every day to make sure UHV is represented well through its website, marketing materials and publicity pieces,” said Paula Cobler, director of UHV Marketing & Communications. “It was an exciting night, and it was especially rewarding to receive recognition from our peers in the marketing and communications industry.
Other Gold ADDY awards went to UHV graphic designer George Rodriguez for the 2017 UHV Baseball Game Day Program cover design, and Rodriguez and former UHV graphic designers Akalina Sanchez and Chris Perez for a campaign of four UHV/American Book Review Reading Series posters.
“The graphic designers are always looking for creative ways to showcase the university, and I am pleased that their hard work was recognized,” said Shane Blucher, UHV creative services manager.
UHV also was recognized with two Silver ADDY awards. The first was for print pieces promoting the 2016-2017 UHV President’s Annual Report & Excellence Awards. The pieces were a joint effort of the creative services, communications and administrative staff within Marketing & Communications and UHV Special Events Coordinator Nancy Gresham. The second was for the 2017 UHV Homecoming logo, which was designed by Perez.
Two Bronze ADDY awards went to Blucher for his design of a donor retention mailer and Rodriguez for a UHV baseball poster.
Members of the department who worked on the UHV website redesign were Cobler; Marci Wallace, web services manager; Eric Chacon, web projects manager; Blucher; Jeremy Shapiro, former communications manager; Warren Diprose, web developer; Felicity Medrano, web designer; Rodriguez; Sanchez; Perez; and Lauren Emerson, communications specialist.
“None of the things we did with the website redesign could have been accomplished without a true team effort,” Wallace said. “We now have a university website using the latest web technologies that is modern and appeals to more prospective students.”
The ADDY Awards is a three-tiered national competition conducted annually by the American Advertising Federation. The Gold ADDYs UHV won on Thursday will be automatically entered in the district ADDY Awards competition. District winners then compete in the national ADDY Awards competition.
The ADDYs are the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition, attracting more than 40,000 entries every year in local AAF competitions. Selection of the most creative entry in each category is decided by a scoring process in which a panel of judges evaluates all creative dimensions of every entry. Gold ADDY awards are the highest level of creative excellence and are judged to be superior to all other entries in a category. The number awards given in each category is determined by the judges based on the relative quality of work in that category.