The results from the Marketing Association of Credit Unions (MAC) Annual Awards Competition are in – and they’re really good for Echo-Factory and Altura Credit Union. The campaign we developed for Altura’s iChecking product won a MAC Gold Award – beating out advertising campaigns for credit unions all over the country.

Ordinarily, we’d post a picture of the award but most of us at the factory haven’t seen it yet. The award is currently in transit. Yesterday, Dea and Mike flew up to San Francisco to present Altura’s iChecking campaign to the judges at the national Marketing Association of Credit Unions (MAC) conference. They’re headed back today, award in hand.

Until they return, we’re busy trying to find room for it in our jam-packed awards cabinet. But rest assured, wherever it ends up, it will be surrounded by such great awards as Mike’s “World’s Best Boss” mug and our “2009 LA Marathon Drop-outs” Plaque.

Content from the May issue of Rangefinder Magazine just hit the internets, and features a profile of our very own Michael Schaffer and some of his work for the California Lotto, Mag Lite, Boot Barn and Troy Lee.  We’re happy to see Mike get the press, but it’s too bad the article took so long to come out.  The interview was conducted in 2008, and things at Schaffer Photography and Echo-Factory were different then. 

In 2008, Echo-Factory was still a fledgling ad agency.  Mike was doing quite a bit of photography for outside agencies, with Echo-Factory providing art-direction and other creative services.  Today the vast majority of Mike’s photography is directly for Echo-Factory clients.

The article talks about Mike’s studio in Upland - today both our agency and Mike’s studio are still in the Inland Empire, but now at our fancy new offices in Rancho Cucamonga. 

Nevertheless - it is nice to see Mike’s advertising photography recognized.  He’s received a shelf or two worth of photography awards during his career - but Rangefinder really is the publication for professional photographers. 

We just hope it doesn’t go to his head. 

Read The Article <—Warning - that’s a PDF link. 

This year was Echo-Factory’s first time entering the ADDY awards, so we were pretty excited on Friday when we won the IE ADDY’s Overall “Best of Show” award, the event’s highest award.  Plus, all seven of our entries medaled in the competition. 

Of course - this isn’t the end of the ADDY road.  Two of our entries will be forwarded from the Inland Empire advertising competition on to the Southwest regional ADDY’s, where they’ll compete against work from Los Angeles, OC and Las Vegas advertising agencies. If we happen to do well there, they’ll head to the national ADDYs.

The Winning Piece

Our Overall “Best in Show” Award came for the “Voodoo Style” project we did for Precision-Paragon [P2]. 

[P2] hangs its hat on customer service, so when they made a mistake on an order, they asked us to help them make things right.  We created the package, and the day it arrived at the client’s warehouse, they placed another order with Precision-Paragon [P2]. 

Just this morning Lou Preston - the National Sales Director for Precision-Paragon [P2] - sent us this note: 

“We didn’t give the client a chance to write us off and find a different vendor.  We have worked together on many projects since, including his most recent request for a potential $150k project.  Thanks again for all that you do in managing the image of P2.”

  Winning awards is nice, helping our clients succeed is nicer.  We’ve often heard that award winning work is often very different form effective work.  We’re happy to prove that adage wrong. 

Our Other ADDY Award Winners: