Veterans Top Ad Awards but Newcomer Collects 21

A newcomer to the Orange County Ad Club contest walked away with 21 awards Saturday night, the third highest number given to any agency this year.

Lawrence & Mayo, a Newport Beach firm entering its first Ad Club contest, won one gold, six silver, 13 merit and one special judges’ awards in the club’s 35th annual contest.

The agency, which is less than two years old, won its gold award for an educational kit it created for the Burn Awareness Coalition.

The two top winners were the Ad Award’s usual heavyweights.

The dGWB agency in Irvine garnered 31 awards: two Best of Show, 13 gold, 13 merit and three special judges’ awards. The Best of Show awards went to the agency’s campaigns for Yamaha Guitars and STA Travel.

Salvati Montgomery Sakoda, a Costa Mesa agency, won 28 awards: two gold, five silver and 21 merit.

Honors for account executives of the year went to Dennis Trombley of Marshall Advertising and Mandi Dossin of dGWB.

Client-of-the-Year awards were given to Paul Meisenzahl of Yamaha Guitars and Neil Donovan of Pacific Coast Brands, both dGWB clients; and Joel Albert of Custom Black and White, a client of Lawrence & Mayo.

Judges, using national standards as their criteria, can make any number of awards in each category, or none at all.

There were 160 awards given this year by judges from agencies such as Goodby, Berlin, Silverstein in San Francisco and Chiat/Day/Mojo in Venice.

There were 989 entries from 178 agencies, free-lance agents and students, the Ad Club said.

With the lion’s share of the honors going to the three firms, the rest of the awards were shared by 48 other entrants.

Other multiple award winners were Clark & Westlund, Newport Beach (two gold, two silver); Strottman International, Irvine (four merit); and Marshall Advertising, El Monte (one gold, two silver, four merit).

Students with winning entries included Chad Brusse and Chris Johnson of Cypress, Bryan Fisher of Irvine, and Robert McCoy of Anaheim.