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The Portland Creative Community took some bold steps with its launch of the Portland Ad Federation Rosey Awards website themed “Nothing Says I’m Better than you Like a Rosey.”  The messaging has an East Coast directness to it that takes many Portlanders by surprise in a city that fosters friendliness to strangers, foes, and friends.  However, I think it’s the perfect time for Portland to step up and talk with confidence about its creative talent here.  Yes, we’ve recently been discovered by the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and other publications as the destination for hipsters (employed and unemployed) to hang out.  But, we aren’t getting much positive press for having the second highest unemployment in the country.  Now is the right time to shout from the roof-tops that Portland creative agencies do kick-ass work! Kudos to Anthill Marketing for the concept, design, and messaging in the site and entire Roseys this year!

2009 PAF Rosey Awards site

I’m not so sure this site would work in most other industries as it is definitely edgy, controversial, and provocative, but I think it’s a shot in the arm that Portland needs.  The true test is to see if agencies from other cities take notice.  Then, an interesting dialog will begin.

You’ll start to see this campaign promoted more on Twitter (I love the “Rosey Smack Feed” section of the ‘Win Tix’ part of the site), Facebook, and other blogs in the upcoming months.  I’ve got to sign off from this blog post to think of some good Smack Talk myself – submit your own here >>

As Portland Ad Federation’s website says, “Go a few rounds with Portland’s heavyweights. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

As a lightweight in the Portland creative realm, I absolutely loved being part of a creative concept that further reinforced Portland agency owners collaborating to do something very cool. Livengood Nowack came up with the 60’s style, boxing inspired theme to this year’s Rosey Awards – 11 agency owners dressed in boxing attire and got greased up for the photo shoot. I was having a really hard time putting my “Eye of the Tiger” face on as other agency owners like Scott “Vanilla Thrilla” Nowack and Phil “The O’Reilly Factor” Reilly were continually busting jokes.

Check out the site: www.RoseyAwards.com and click on “Features” in the navigation. One more reason to love Portland and its Creative Class. Big kudos to Livengood Nowack for making this happen!