• by Kelly Samardak , September 28, 2009

Night of the Adeaters, Terminal 5, New York
September 25, 2009

Well how the heck are you, my little media, marketing, and advertising pros and cons?  Still breathing?  Excellent!  Here I am on Monday, writing about an event that happened Friday.  Why the slow turnaround?  Let's just say I hit my wall Saturday morning and my fingers wanted nothing to do with photos and writing.   I was also 100% confident that no one would be torturing themselves by reading anything work related (even if it's the fun stuff) this past weekend.  Was I right?  If not, don't tell me I was wrong, I'm very sensitive this morning and I don't think I could handle it.  Let's see how Advertising Week ended, shall we?

I ended my Advertising Week '09 with Night of the Adeaters. It's as odd as it sounds.  In fact, I wouldn't even say odd, even though I just did.  Maybe because it was in the same venue as the ANDY Awards (good ole Terminal 5!), it felt like it had already been done before.  I'd like to submit Exhibit 1a into evidence: hugeongus screen ready for audience to watch clever, bizarre, shocking, disturbing and sometimes freakish ads for unlimited time periods.   Same as the ANDY awards, only no trophies and for further than a year out.

Exhibit 2a: Bar flowing with beverages, laden with nuts, and blinking with blinky ice cubes.  Same as the ANDY awards only the open bar privileges ended after the "press conference.".  I also recall the ANDY's had tons of food, but Adeaters had a singular table with plastic boxed pastries for purchase...cash only.  Now, I'm sure there was a price point and ticket budgeting figured in here, but still... croissants?

OK, enough with the exhibits.  There was a VIP/press area upstairs where the benefits were open bar and buffet food.  I actually preferred being un-VIP because the view was more comfortable. I know, you're thinking, "make up your mind, dingbat, do you want to be treated like a VIP or not?" Honestly I just want the same good stuff as everyone else.  Whatever that means.  It's situation specific, ok?  Either way, the view was weird from above, so after taking some shots of guests and peanuts, I made myself comfortable in a hot pink seat.

The press conference was ok.  Everyone was late and blamed Obama.  I came via subway and was on time.  Just saying.  I blame Obama for my punctuality.  I guess the sponsors/partners wanted Jean Marie Boursicot, Founder of Adeaters (which, according to PR materials, has been an international sensation for over 27 years), to feel important because they went the whole nine - video cameras, interviews, etc.  

Short story (after all that):  Two of my favorite things are eating, drinking, and watching TV.  Night of the Adeaters brought my favorites together into one colorful night that was like the ANDY Awards but with way more footage and no awards.  I wasn't about to stick around until 2:00a.m, however, it had been a long week, so I'm pretty sure I cut out after 11:00p.m.

With that, I end my official Advertising Week 2009 coverage.  What did I learn this year?  That once again, I need to forego some parties and cover a few day seminars to feed my brain and my belly, that every year I do something stupid - and this year was no exception, that try as we might hide it, we're all victims of the economy and it's showing, and finally, and probably most importantly, people still haven't figured out that it's so much nicer just to say "no thank you" than to turn their backs to the photographer.  Some of us are actually humans behind these lenses. 

Photos from the night are on Flickr .  More to come!

If you just can't get enough, I'd say around 5:00p.m EST today you should check the Advertising Week 2009 Collection on Flickr for all photos.  I have a lofty goal of getting that thing finalized today!

Send invitations to parties to kelly@mediapost.com!