The Ad Club, a trade group for the New England communications industry, took to a Boston landmark for a landmark celebration—the 50th anniversary of the Hatch Awards for excellence in advertising and marketing—and hosted an interactive award ceremony and after-party for 900 guests at the Citi Performing Arts Wang Theatre on Thursday.
“The goal of the Hatch Awards is to spend an evening honoring the top current creative work that comes out of New England’s advertising and marketing industry,” Ad Club president Kathy Kiely said. “To accomplish this, we really had to capture everything that has happened [in the industry] in the past 50 years in one show, while honoring the present.”
To highlight the current social media and marketing trend, the Ad Club decided to make the event more interactive, using Twitter and audience surveys to reel in attendees. During the after-party, a large center screen displayed live Twitter updates, handled by LocaModa, as well as photos and survey answers from the audience thanks to technology provided by Aerva Inc.
The awards’ main branding element, the Hatch bowl, was this created by Arnold Worldwide and played a prominent role in the event’s decor and marketing. The grand marquee outside the Wang displayed a 50th anniversary logo; and in addition to appearing on the main screen onstage, sponsor logos were displayed on nine different screens throughout the venue, as well as on a four-tier cake by Cakes for Occasions.
