ALMA wins Best of Show at the ADDY Award Competition.

A grassroots, civic-pride campaign for Visit Florida won the Best of Show nod for Miami-based advertising agency Alma at the 2012 AdFed Miami ADDY Competition.

Alma received the only Best of Show award this year, across all categories of media, an unusual distinction. The agency also won two gold statuettes and fourteen silvers – notable especially because the jury overall awarded 50 percent fewer entries than last year.

The Visit Florida campaign “Beach Walk” featured an organic, one-day event to rally ordinary people to walk every inch of the Sunshine State’s 825 miles of coastline to show the world that the beaches were open for business – even during the massive oil spill. The project produced exceptional results for the state’s tourism industry marketing efforts during a sluggish economy coupled with a natural disaster.

“It’s a matter of pride for everyone at Alma to have had such a great performance at the ADDY,” said Luis Miguel Messianu, President and CCO of Alma. “Winning the ONLY Best of Show demonstrates that our spirit of collaboration, both internally and with our clients, yields great results. We are honored to win on behalf of a variety of clients and with such a diverse body of work.”

Only four months ago, the “Beach Walk” campaign for Visit Florida was honored with the Grand Prize for “Campaign with Significant Results”, the most competitive category of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) 2011 Multicultural Excellence Awards.

Alma also took home ADDYs for its work produced for McDonald’s — including the “Asian Salad: Chopsticks” print ad, the “Monopoly” radio campaign, the “Hypothesis” TV spot and the “Strawberry Lemonade Burst” case.

A print campaign for Tobacco Free Florida “Tobacco Free” was also awarded by the ADDY juries.

“Once again Alma has consolidated its position as one of the most awarded agencies of South Florida. We are extremely proud of the fact we received recognition for our General Market and our Multicultural units, demonstrating the unique skills Alma brings to its clients,” said Isaac Mizrahi, SVP Managing Director of Alma.