VCU Brandcenter Wins 4A’s O’Toole Award for Creative Excellence

By Tom Gresham

The Virginia Commonwealth University Brandcenter received the 4A’s O’Toole Award for Creative Excellence in the new Portfolio School category during a ceremony this week in New York City.

The VCU Brandcenter, a two-year graduate advertising program that awards a Master of Science degree in mass communications with a concentration in advertising, earned the award on Monday night at the Nokia Theatre in an event that kicked off Advertising Week 2009. Other top winners included BBDO New York (Large Agency), BBH (Mid-Sized Agency), Barrie D’Rozario Murphy (Small Agency), Ogilvy North America (Public Service: National) and McKinney (Public Service: Local). Judges were agency creatives, who reviewed categories of non-competing size groups.

“It is a tremendous honor to be recognized alongside agencies that produce such excellent work,” said Rick Boyko, director of the VCU Brandcenter. “The 4A’s O’Toole Awards are a test of an agency’s ability to create great work consistently and this award demonstrates the strength of Brandcenter students’ creative output across the board.”

The O’Toole Awards program carries a reputation as one of the toughest and most prestigious in advertising because it emphasizes an entry’s body of work rather than a single campaign. Award submissions must include work completed for a collection of different brands. The result is an award that recognizes year-long creative excellence rather than “one hot idea,” according to Chuck Porter, chairman of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, LLC, and chair of the 4A’s Creative Committee.

“It is a difficult enough achievement to produce top-notch work once but to produce it on a steady basis is a real accomplishment,” said Kelly O’Keefe, managing director of the VCU Brandcenter. “We are pleased the judges viewed our students’ work in this light.”

Proceeds from the O’Toole Awards are donated to 4A’s Foundation, Inc., which has a primary goal of awarding scholarships to multicultural students of the advertising arts. The 4A’s is the national trade association of the advertising agency business. The 1,175 member agency offices it services in the United States employ 65,000 people, offer a wide range of marketing communications services and place 80 percent of all national advertising.