The ego of a creative person is like a sports car or an infant. It requires frequent maintenance. Without a regular diet of attaboys and loveits, even mild criticism can send confident pros teetering on the brink of miserable hackdom. To keep the creeping fear of mediocrity at bay, we invented annual awards ceremonies. And let me tell you, they work like a charm. At least when you win. Which we did recently at the Sacramento Ad Club.

The program goes like this: You submit work you’re proud of. Before the big ceremony, you are told if you won something, but you’re not told whether you won “silver,” “gold” or perhaps even “best in show.” That’s your incentive to show up and find out—in the company of your peers and rivals.

We took a silver award for the CARES outdoor billboard campaign, which was meant to help at-risk people and their loved ones overcome the stigma of HIV long enough to confide in each other and discuss testing and treatment.

Winning silver is always nice, but at time of writing, gold is worth 39 times more. We picked up two gold awards—alas, gold in sentiment only. One was for banner ads we did for Methodist Hospital’s bariatric surgery weight loss program. The other gold was for the holiday package we put together. Honestly, the picture doesn’t do that one justice. To really appreciate it, you need to open it and turn it over in your hands. In short, it’s a big matchbox full of glow sticks along with a booklet that suggests 20 fun glow stick uses—one for each year we’ve been in business.

Congratulations to all the Addy winners in our creative community this year.