The AAF Silver Medal Award

The American Advertising Federation’s Silver Medal Award Program was established in 1959 to recognize men and women who have made outstanding contributions to advertising and who have been active in furthering the industry’s standards, creative excellence, and responsibility in areas of social concern. Each year, our AAF chapter bestows this honor upon an outstanding member of the Seattle advertising community.

The 2024 AAF Silver Medal Award

Please nominate someone who’s made a genuine impact on our creative community to win our club’s highest honor.

We urge you to give extra consideration to underrepresented people whose paths may be outside the traditional industry avenues but whose contributions are clearly significant.

Recipient Criteria

The Silver Medal Award recipient is selected by a panel of past recipients based on the following criteria:

Contributions to their company. The recipient must have successfully led an ad agency, advertiser, media outlet or advertising service in the Seattle area.
Creative ability. No matter which discipline they’re in, the recipient must have worked to raise standards in the advertising profession.
Contributions to the advancement of advertising. The recipient must have worked to increase the stature and raise the standards of the advertising profession.
Contributions to the community. The recipient should be actively involved as someone who gives back to the community.

SUBMIT A NominatION

Nominations are due FEBRUARY 29 , 2024!

The 2023 AAF Silver Medal Award

Our 2023 AAF Silver Medal recipient is Alan Brown!

Alan Brown

Alan is an Ohio native and a graduate of The Ohio State University. After a 15-year career in corporate advertising and marketing with Procter & Gamble, Pepsi and two advertising agencies, Alan became self-employed. In 1998, he co-founded DNA which in the past 25 years has been recognized by the PSBJ as one of the region’s fastest growing private companies. DNA has also been recognized by Advertising Age as their 2021 Small Agency of the Year, Northwest.

An advocate for diversity and the LGBTQ+ community, Alan was an inaugural member of CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion. Alan has also led the development of Come Out to Work, an Instagram-based publishing conversation and the Project 47 Pledge, the first LGBTQ+ mentorship program for ad agencies in the US. He also received the Puget Sound Journal’s Outstanding Voice recognition for his leadership on LGBTQ+ issues in the business community.

Some of Alan’s favorite and most notable client work produced by DNA has been for BECU, PEMCO Insurance, Rainier Beer and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

In his personal time, Alan serves on the board and is the past Board Chair at StolenYouth, a Seattle based non-profit working to end child sex trafficking in Washington state. His recent efforts have been leading the creation and development of Project: SugarFree. This work led DNA to receive the 2021 Corporate Citizenship Award for Vulnerable Communities from the PSBJ.

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