RAF Board Meets for Annual Member Meeting

In September, the RAF board invited RAF members to our annual member meeting, hosted this year by Dixon Schwabl.

The 2018-2019 season was one marked by some landmark events and other accomplishments. We continued to host ten 20 Minutes and a Beer events between September 2018 and June 2019. Topics ranged from the internal workings of agency relationships, how to be practical in your ad strategies, how to make impactful videos, to the current state of advertising marijuana as an illegal substance, navigating an advertising career, and so much more.

Our second annual Rochester Advertising Week was held during the first week of November in 2018. Five lunch and learns provided a variety of educational opportunities for our members with an increased focus on introducing diverse speakers and topics. Two keynote speakers traveled to Rochester. Greg Kihlstrom spoke about his book, The Agile Brand, and Chris Edwards shared his personal rebranding story from his gender transition and how he found the courage to be his true self – in his personal life and in his career.

Moving into the new year, Optic Sky – the 2018 ADDYs Best in Show winner – brought us a secretive new theme: Double Agency. The ADDYs show in March 2019 introduced exciting new creative to the rest of the community, and awarded the year’s Best in Show to Partners+Napier. Throughout this past year, we received much feedback on the layout, flow, and all things ADDYs related, and have been reflecting on that feedback for the year ahead.

Finally, we proudly launched a re-brand and new RAF website in April of 2019. Many thanks to our dedicated creative team who supported this multi-year project:Marc Hartwig, Matt D’Angelo, Rich Brainerd, and James Ashberry. If you haven’t visited our new site, be sure to check it out and create or log into your account.

With some fresh faces on our board this year, we’re looking ahead to another successful year. We will continue to host monthly 20MAABs, have a robust schedule ahead for this November’s R/AD WEEK, and the ADDYs committee is hard at work planning our biggest event of the year for this coming March. We’re excited about a pilot program we’re running with RIT, Stay in Rochester, focused on how to get recent grads to stay in and contribute to the Rochester community.

We have some ambitious goals set for this board year and are excited to share more as we make progress, as we seek support and input from our members and community, and as we achieve new heights.