HMH Wins Silver National ADDY in the American Advertising Awards

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – HMH, a local marketing communications agency with offices in Charlotte, N.C., and Portland, Ore., received a Silver National ADDY in the 2018 National ADDY Awards competition from the American Advertising Federation. HMH was selected from more than 34,000 entries nationally and won locally and regionally before advancing to the national competition.

The agency’s win comes on the heels of having received another national ADDY from the American Advertising Federation just last year.

The winning work was for the Thomas Built Buses Facts about Fuels Campaign in the category of Integrated Advertising Campaign: B-to-B National Campaign. The work involved educating school transportation directors, school board members and school bus dealers about the benefits of diesel fuel for school buses. The comprehensive campaign included an interactive parallax landing page, posters, digital ads, videos and online content that helped communicate the facts: the truths about how clean, efficient, proven and innovative diesel really is.

“This campaign was really awesome to work on,” said Shawn Kelley, executive creative director for HMH.  “While the subject matter was definitely complex, we were able to boil a lot of information down into an easy-to-understand format that was also entertaining. We’ve heard a lot of great feedback from the client, but winning this award is icing on the cake. And what makes that even sweeter, the work is for a B-to-B client with a complicated message.”

Not only is the Facts About Fuels campaign award-winning, but it also achieved resounding success based on several Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), with millions of impressions, views and open rates nearly double industry averages, time on site of over six minutes and a place in the top ten search results on Google.

The team for this campaign included executive creative director Shawn Kelley, senior art director for children’s book illustrations John Howard, copywriter and associate creative director Carol Holsinger, account supervisor Betsy Grant, senior public relations account executive Christina Chu, project managers Lauren Blumenshine and Paula Phillis, digital campaign and analytics manager Robb Beck, media director Jenn Hausman, brand strategy director Denise Hollingsworth, developer Will Jardine and production company Dash.

About the HMH
With offices in Portland, Ore., and Charlotte, N.C., HMH (www.hmhagency.com) is a 40-year-old full service marketing communications agency serving a wide range of local, regional and national clients. HMH offers brand strategy, advertising, media buying, public relations, graphic design and digital services.

About the American Advertising Awards
The American Advertising Awards competition is the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition for creative excellence. The three-tier national competition is conducted annually by the American Advertising Federation (AAF.org), advertising’s largest industry association. And it is the only competition to represent the interests of all facets of advertising: advertisers, agencies, suppliers and media. The AAF is based in Washington, D.C., and has more than 50,000 members through 220 local advertising clubs, 220 college chapters and 110 corporations.