Mark your calendars for the Milwaukee 99 Awards Show at the Harley Davidson Museum on Thursday, September 20th, 2012.

Any questions regarding the entries, please email Adworkers Director Heidi Sterricker at heidi@adworkers.com or call 414-975-8979.

Milwaukee 99 Categories

Guidelines

Milwaukee 99 Entry Form

MKE 99 Digital Log

It’s time for another round, folks! Our 9th annual golf outing is Friday, June 22nd located at Mee-Kwon Golf Course in Mequon, WI. Shotgun start at noon. Fees include round of golf (18 holes-best ball), cart, beer, lunch, prizes and more. Take the half day and enjoy mingling with local sponsors and friends of the community. We guarantee a good time.

Interested in sponsoring the event? Check out the sponsorship form and contact Heidi Sterricker at heidi@adworkers.com.

Thanks to Boelter-Lincoln and Brian Stefanik for designing this year’s Golf Outing creative.

Golf Registration 2012

UAW Golf 2012 Sponsorship Form

Golf Player(s)

Single$100.00 USD Foursome$400.00 USD

BE NICE

It’s a rec league. If somebody gets a bad call, so what? Bad calls have a way of evening themselves out. Chances are your team will get a favorable wrong call at some point. Relax. And remember that it’s a small town and you don’t want to show up on your first day at the new job and overhear someone say “Oh yeah, I know that guy from softball. He’s a dick.”

USE BASE COACHES

It can save some time on debating a call between a group of people who were half watching. When it’s all said and done the base coach gets the final call and that’s that. I know no one wants to go hang out at third by themselves but it really comes in handy. Bring a beer.

SLIDE OR STAY

You MUST slide at home if it’s a close play. But having spent many summers with scabbed legs that look more like tree bark than shins, I know the feeling of hesitation you get as you’re rounding third and heading for the gravel pile that is home plate. So if you’re not gonna slide then just stay put. Even if the next batter doesn’t hit you in, you’ll at least be able to wear shorts for the rest of the summer.

GUYS: CHILL

We all know that coach shouldn’t have benched you in the state championship, but don’t take out your frustration on the Adworkers diamond. Yes, you’re totally supposed to plow someone over if they’re in the baseline or blocking home plate, but 9 times out of 10 that person doesn’t know the inner dynamics of baseball and is not ready to get clocked. So remember that regular baseball smarts do not always apply to a friendly rec league game. Save that for your Thursday bar league versus The Dirty Sanchez’s.

LADIES: PLAY

Please show up. I promise that no one cares how good or bad you are. We all just wanna play and not have to forfeit or call our second cousin frantically at 5:16 begging them to play. I have a glove you can borrow.

NO DRINKING

We all know that’s not gonna happen so at least be fairly discreet with your beverages. I’m pretty sure we’re still not technically allowed to have them at the parks. And if you see the mounted cop at Kern, just fucking run.

If we all stick to these quick little guidelines I think we’ll have yet another great year playing, drinking, and finding out how out of shape we’re all getting. And please feel free to leave a comment on anything else I missed.

Cheers,

Brian Stefanik

His father was a city clerk, an honorary fire chief and, for a brief time, an employee of the prestigious IBM. I never questioned how my father found himself residing in an industry that his father undoubtedly viewed as a gaggle of overpaid, drunken professional finger painters, but I’m sure my good-old granddad put plenty of elbow grease into strong-arming his son into a more noble career.

My father was on the client side for the Ford Motor Company–a fact I loathe to admit, actually. When the topic arises I quickly exhale the phrase in one, monosyllabic declaration, myfatherwasinadvertising, in the hopes that no one would ever ask for me to recite his résumé, which I know by rote.

Client side, pfft.

In my mind, my father was very much the king-hell butcher I’m forced to sit across from on any given day. Not only prepared, but genuinely anxious to process my marbled-ribeye concepts and perfectly-plated tactics into stew meat, or worse, hog’s feed. It should come as no surprise then that as of late, much like the mystery of my father’s own arrival in the ad business, I’ve found myself clutching a healthy portion of rapidly-graying hair from the sides of my own head while gazing skyward and asking the higher powers the same question: Why me?

How the hell did I end up here? Recently, I’ve been granted some insight by way of long forgotten memories. Maybe this is a sign my plea was heard. Conceivably, some sort of cosmic hypnosis punctuated with solar flares and other enigmatic phenomenona could have occurred. Perhaps my current coffee intake has enabled me to see through time. It’s likely a combination of these elements and others. Regardless of the forces in action, what I saw–rather, what I remembered–painted a vivid portrayal of my first childhood steps toward advertising.

Flashback to my parent’s basement. Before shuttling my six-year-old body off to bed, my parents introduced me to Mr. So-and-so, a writer for Yada Yada. And Mr. Blahblahblah, the director of… Yawn. It was past my bedtime. But the next morning I anxiously arose to rejoin the action all over again, but all I found was the aftermath of an actual madman’s party; only this one was thrown by the client.

Plates smeared with half-eaten petit fours and emptied bottles littered the room. Cups remained with enough remnants of liquor to murder a small army, or at least hobble a mid-sized agency. Dozens of mounted and framed Ford ads from the era adorn the walls. Minutes into entering the room I’m standing behind my father’s bar using both of my tiny hands to upright a bottle of vodka into a tumbler containing two fingers of orange juice.

This is the proper ratio for a decent screwdriver, an older Roger Sterling instructs me. He was already past his prime, yet he’s the last hanger-on from last night’s ruckus. I’m wearing footy pajamas and examining the veins in his eyes while his wrinkled, translucent finger jabs me between gulps. It’s no wonder this moment has been burned into my hippocampus.

These days, the signs of malaise brought on by the obligatory client function are obvious. Eyes roll in their sockets. Exhaled sighs are more audible. Timepieces tick backward. Why yes, I will have that fifth 7/7 to bear the conversation. But my father’s party? Carefree smiles and legitimate laughter are brought on by something more than another Canadian Club on rocks. These people weren’t just having fun. They were having a riot. They actually liked my father. They actually liked my father, the client?

Years later my father and I are on the edge of my parent’s bed, a massive stack of black plastic VHS cases are resting between us ready to topple as if someone just ended a nerve-racking game of Jenga. As he pores through the stack, my father is recounting the day. He and the team have finished cutting Ford’s new campaign, “Quality is Job 1.” The president of Ford Motor Company had been shown the spots earlier that day and word had it he was moved to tears. These black cases held that power.

He chose one from the pile, cracked it open and clumsily fed the tape into the player. Fuzzy titles on black followed by a crackling BEEP-POP. The spot begins:

The lineman on screen is 101 years old. His skin hangs from his face. Nothing seems connected anymore. He’s melting. His voice is soft, slightly garbled and wet; like he’s speaking through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. He tells some interviewer off screen about the day Henry Ford walked up to him on the assembly line, patted him on the back and congratulated him on doing a fine job for the company. He was enthusiastic. As he prattled on, sepia-toned footage of hardworking Americans merrily assembling cars rolls on. Camaraderie. Craftsmanship. Nobility. Pride. American ideals symbolized with glistening chrome, squeaky rubber and beads of sweat. “And you’ll find the same spirit in every Ford vehicle today. Ford Motor Company. Quality is Job 1.”

One cassette ejects and another is loaded. This one with the same sweeping, breathtakingly beautiful sentiment played out with yet another octogenarian lineman. They keep coming. Again and again in :30s and :60s until you can’t miss the point. I turn to my father with the ejection of the final cassette and he has tears in his eyes.

I’m 15 years old and Mr. Levos, the head of HR for J. Walter Thompson, is giving me the grand tour of the Detroit headquarters. The office is comprised of a dozen or so floors in the Commerica Bank building downtown. He walks me through the seemingly endless prairie of cubicles and details the company’s history between the occasional hello, a constant reassurance that reports will be completed and the very frequent, “How’s the missus?” My father had arranged for me to spend a day at “the shop” but I had no idea how wonderful such a place would be.

The elevator doors opened and we stood in the lobby of the 15th floor. Decorated with the ephemera of GoodYear Tires, the entire place is floor-to-ceiling rubber. POPs, collateral, posters, advertising. The place looks like an auto body shop missing the line of cars, a lift and a pin-up girl calendar.

Another floor higher and the elevator doors open into disco ball. The lobby is encrusted in diamonds. DeBeers jewelry in crystal cases. Levos explains each floor is decorated exclusively in the marketing materials of their clients. I wonder which floor I can find sunglasses.

The elevator dings again at the 17th floor and I’m engulfed with the fragrance of fried onions. The smell wraps around me like a teasing princess. White Castle. Crave Cases and Sacks of Ten are everywhere. It’s a greasy Shangri-La filled with piles and piles of trophies from JWT’s recent work. I’ve seen enough. Stop the tour and ring my father; tell him I’m never coming home.

Despite my reluctancy, the tour continues. The magical elevator opens on the 18^th floor and I’m still reeling to get back to the bite-sized beauties. Then something hits me. A Nerf gun, to be precise. I’m in the midst of a child’s arsenal of rubber-tipped artillery. The stockpile is what the Junior Michigan Militia’s underground bunker must look like. I’m awestruck.

“This is amazing! I didn’t know you guys had the Nerf account!”

“We don’t. This is the floor where the creatives work. They get bored and like attacking the other floors, so we bought them these so they’d stop using water balloons.”

And you still wonder how I end up here?

The question needs no real reflection. No grand answer. And certainly no solar flares. The real question is what could have stopped me from arriving? Joining up meant being a part of something far greater than it’s paltry moniker, “The Advertising Industry.”

Collectively we are brilliant. Think of it: Our knowledge of healthcare, finance and higher education, of craft beers, sandy beaches and steak dinners, of non-profit, for profit and find-a-way-to-make-a profit products and services for every industry is unparalleled. Together we have the power to make the populous laugh, cry or even weep with laughter. Every sentiment is at our disposal to help people feel and experience things they never have. To quietly reflect. To outwardly act.

We shape opinions, change perceptions and stir regional, national and even global movements. The work we do today is just as captivating as anything that’s come before it. We are artists, conjurers, comedians, educators and orators. We are the men and women behind the curtain who produce a different show for a different audience each and every day. And we’re center stage running the dog, pony and whatever-the-hell-else-we-can-drag-out-show. As trite, cliché and perhaps even self-glorifying as it sounds, there is truly nothing we cannot do together.

So the question isn’t how did I end up here; that’s simple: I’m my father’s son, and my dad was an ad man. How could I have resisted?

The important question to ask ourselves is what will we do while we’re here? And more importantly, what kind of impressions are we leaving for the next generation to reminisce over?

I am truly honored to lead the club that I helped found a decade ago. A lot has changed since I was named the club’s first President in 2001.

Some of you may not be old enough to remember, but just 10 years ago, the Milwaukee ad community was a hot mess. The Ad Club’s membership was divided and disenfranchised. Most of the biggest agencies boycotted the town’s showcase event, the Addy Awards. And the organization was saddled with debt.

That’s when a small group of Creative Directors and agency owners came together and said enough is enough.  And they invested their own money into hiring a full-time executive director; created an awards show format unlike anyone in the country had ever done; crafted a new mission with a new spirit and energy; and branded themselves with a unique name. The United Adworkers was born.

When I look back at how far we’ve come as a community since then, and how strong our club is today, it’s absolutely amazing. Our speaker series is stronger than ever. Our social events are consistently packed and draw a diverse crowd. Our bowling and softball leagues are stacked. Our 99 Show is bigger and more popular than ever — and its success is the envy of clubs around the country.

And it’s still that way after 10 years. After the shine has worn off. And the new ad club smell has faded away.

The truth is, if we were at all like other ad clubs around the country, by now we’d already be on our way down, skidding toward irrelevance.

But I’m proud to report that after a decade of service, we’re the opposite. And there are two great big reasons for that.

One, we have a kick-ass ad community that is more talented, more fun and much deeper than any out-of-towner could ever imagine (unless, of course, they’ve judged our show).

And two, we have a board of directors that is crazy-passionate about keeping our community strong. Dan Augustine. Mitch Markussen. Lucian McAfee. Laura Gainor. Brian Stefanik. Michael Vojvodich. Nick Waraska. And Jen Kuhn. Along with Executive Director extraordinaire, Heidi Sterricker.

Together, they are the hardest working board you’ll ever find. And they truly understand that they are here to serve the community. Yeah, you. They know our club is only as good as our last show, our last speaker, our last softball game or our last Trivia Night. So they put all they’ve got into everything we do. And this year, we have some pretty cool shit planned.

So stay tuned. Stay in touch with us on our website, on Facebook and Twitter. And if you have any questions, suggestions or concerns, don’t hesitate to e-mail me at GaryM@bvk.com or Heidi atheidi@adworkers.com.

Thank you.

Gary

DUE DATE:
All entries must be submitted by Monday, March 5, 2012 at 11:59 pm CST

DISCLAIMER:
This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You are providing your information to United Adworkers and not to Facebook. The information you provide will only be used for the United Adworkers 2012 Membership Card Contest. Submitted entries will be published on the Adworkers Facebook page for voting. Voting period will occur between Thursday, March 8, 2012 at 12:00 am CST and end on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 at 11:59 pm CST.
Entrant must work at an agency or attend a University in the Milwaukee metro area. This includes a 60 mile radius around downtown Milwaukee.

Wanna participate? It’s easy. Get a team together (between 3 and 5, no more, no less) and sign up here! Fill out the form and be sure to send to Heidi Sterricker at heidi@adworkers.com. Payment? You can send a check or pay online. Any questions, please email Heidi.

Trivia Night Team

Trivia Night (MEMBERS) $60.00 USD Trivia Night (NON-MEMBERS) $80.00 USD

For the tree killers. Print this trivia sign up form.

READ THE TRIVIA RULES

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for (whether you know it or not) – the release of Adworkers: The Game!

We’ve given them out at bowling and we’re delivering them to an agency near you. But if you want your very own copy of the game, go ahead and download one yourself! Simply download the files, print ‘em out, and play! And while you’re here, be sure to sign up for an Adworkers 2012 membership.

Let us know how YOU get into the game. Tweet us at @unitedadworkers, follow #AdworkersTheGame, and post your photos to facebook.

*Dice not included”

Join us January 19th at Discovery World – Doors Open at 6PM – $10 Members & $20 Non-Members

Event Details on our Facebook page.

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