The Advertising Club of Edmonton (ACE) has found a humorous way to communicate a serious message: major, national creative agencies won’t be adding any ACE Awards to their cabinets – unless they have a home in the city.

With its “Call for NO Entries” campaign, developed with creative sponsor FKA, the organization calls out many of the country’s largest and most recognized agencies. It does so both in a humorous spot, and through double-sided posters it has sent directly to agencies around the country that specifically poke fun at the names of those agencies.

From “Zulu Alpha Zero” to “McCann’t” to “Nogilvy,” ACE doesn’t shy away from naming who’s missing out. But the gesture isn’t meant as a disrespectful one, says Pablo Herrera Cruz, a strategist at FKA. It’s all in good fun.

“We have a lot of respect for our contemporaries across the country,” he explains. “This is a fun way for us to call attention to the exceptional work being done by creative professionals in Edmonton that, frankly, deserves recognition.”

“The quality of talent [at those agencies] is amazing and the people are really great, but some agencies are definitely award hungry,” says Craig Markou, ECD at FKA, who himself has worked in a freelance capacity with several of the named shops. By calling out the top shops that can’t enter the ACE Awards, it gives an added sense of exclusivity and prestige to the local Edmonton agencies that end up winning.

Ultimately, the goal of the show, which will be held this year on April 22, is to shine a light on local agencies and put the broader Canadian advertising industry on notice about the work that Edmonton creative shops deliver on a regular basis.

By reaching out to the largest and most notable agencies in the country, Markou also says it puts them on notice about “the quality of work that is coming out of this city.”

“This campaign is a way for us to show the passion and creativity in Edmonton – in a fun, unexpected way,” he adds.