Brand USA Receives Top Honors at the 2021 American Advertising Awards (DC)

Brand USA’s consumer campaign, United Stories, will advance to the next round of AAF competition for its excellence in cinematography and promotion of diversity in advertising

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. (April XX, 2021)—Brand USA, the destination marketing organization for the United States, took home three Gold American Advertising Awards (formerly the ADDYs Award), a Gold Mosaic Award, and the Special Judge’s Award from the American Advertising Federation (AAF) DC at the 2021 American Advertising Awards Virtual Experience on Thursday, March 18, 2021. The American Advertising Awards is one of the industry’s largest creative competitions, attracting nearly 35,000 professional and student entries each year through local club competitions. Judged by a panel that evaluates all creative dimensions of each entry, the mission of the Awards is to recognize and reward the creative spirit of excellence in advertising. Gold American Advertising Awards recognize the highest level of creative excellence and is judged to be superior to all other entries in the category. The AAF’s Mosaic Awards recognize companies, agencies and individuals whose commitment to diversity and inclusion is evident through their creative work and organization-wide initiatives.

 

For the second year, AAF DC held its annual awards show virtually where winners were presented with a Gold, Silver, or Bronze awards. Brand USA received the following awards:

 

• [GOLD] Online Film, Video, & Sound, Internet Commercial Single Spot – Discover Wyoming in Winter
• [GOLD] Online/Interactive, Websites, Microsites – United Stories Microsite
• [GOLD] Elements of Advertising, Film & Video, Cinematography Single – Single Cinematography – Discover Wyoming in Winter
• [GOLD] Mosaic Award (Websites) – United Stories Microsite
• Special Judge’s Award (Online Film, Video, & Sound) – Discover Wyoming in Winter

 

“We are honored to have our work recognized by the American Advertising Federation’s DC Chapter amongst great brands and inspiring content,” said Brand USA President and CEO, Chris Thompson. “The travel and tourism industry has faced enormous hardship from the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the many challenges, we were able to reconnect with travelers through our creative marketing efforts. The road to recovery will not always be easy, but we hope to influence travelers worldwide to explore all the exciting travel possibilities in the United States, once it’s safe to travel again.”

 

Brand USA’s consumer marketing campaign and website, United Stories, highlights local and authentic travel experiences throughout the United States with the idea of inspiring travelers from around the world to visit these destinations. To deliver on this goal, Brand USA positioned Wyoming—a bustling resort town in the summer—as a destination worth visiting at any time of the year. The video Discover Wyoming in Winter features influencer Catarina Mello (@professionaltraveler) a native of Brazil—known for her travels to tropical, warm-weather destinations—experiencing the wonders of Wyoming in winter while she marvels over the many different natural attractions the state has to offer. The video is available on Brand USA’s free streaming network, GoUSA TV.

 

With over 60,000 entries annually, the American Advertising Awards competition is the world’s largest and arguably toughest advertising competition. It represents the true spirit of creative excellence by recognizing all forms of advertising from media of all types, creative by all sizes, and entrants of all levels from anywhere in the world. The American Advertising Federation hosts the competition through its 200-member advertising clubs and 15 districts. It is the only creative awards program administered by the advertising industry for the industry.

 

The local tier of the American Advertising Awards is the first of a three-tier, national competition. As a gold award recipient, Brand USA will continue on to the second tier of competition where the marketing organization will compete against winners from other local clubs in one of 15 district competitions.

 

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About Brand USA 

Brand USA, the destination marketing organization for the United States, was established by the Travel Promotion Act as the nation’s first public-private partnership to promote the United States as a premier travel destination and to communicate U.S. travel policies and procedures to worldwide travelers. The organization’s mission is to increase international visitation to the USA in order to fuel the U.S. economy and enhance the image of the United States worldwide. Formed as the Corporation for Travel Promotion in 2010, the public-private entity began operations in May 2011 and does business as Brand USA. According to studies by Oxford Economics, over the past eight years Brand USA’s marketing initiatives have helped welcome 7.7 million incremental visitors to the United States, benefiting the U.S. economy with more than $56 billion in total economic impact and supporting, on average, more than 45,000 incremental jobs a year.

 

To discover more about the USA and the boundless diversity of American travel experiences and authentic, rich culture, please visit Brand USA’s consumer website VisitTheUSA.com and follow Visit The USA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.