Jun. 24--If you think trash talk is for athletes, get a load of Portland's advertising executives.

"Our city is better than your city," industry executives taunt the Seattles and New Yorks of the world in their campaign for this year's Rosey Awards -- the local Oscars of advertising.

There's a diss for every competitor. For Vancouver, B.C., "Remember, this is the country that brought you Alan Thicke and Loverboy." For Portland's alter-ego in Texas, "Award-winning copy in Austin: Yee-haw!"

Jokes aside, Roseys organizers hope to make a serious point. They say Portland deserves credit as a creative hub with international-caliber design, writing and branding talent.

Travel writers heap praise on the city's music, arts and restaurant scenes, but that recognition doesn't always translate to the business world. Fast Company, for example, didn't include Portland in its recent list of most creative cities.

"We're tired of being the best-kept secret in the United States. When you're talking about creative, Portland should be part of the conversation," says Kim Brater, a partner at Ant Hill Marketing, this year's Roseys ambassador.

Local creatives submit their work to the Portland Advertising Federation every summer and gather every fall to celebrate the best poster, magazine spread, Web site and so forth. Like most industry back-patting shindigs, the Roseys rarely make headlines outside the advertising world or beyond the Pacific Northwest.

Ant Hill wanted to drum up lots of contest entries, Brater says -- but also broadcast to the world that Portland is a great place to find creative talent. With few large corporations in Oregon, local ad shops have to look elsewhere for big accounts.

Promoting the industry meshes with the goals of agency executives who meet monthly, convened by the ad federation. Other initiatives include Colaboratory, a summer internship that gives students a chance to work with 10 Portland-area firms.

Ant Hill plans to send tongue-in-cheek letters to other cities' ad industry groups. The small, Pearl District agency also plugs its cheeky Roseys campaign on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites, and hosts a "smack of the week" contest for the best insult.

Reaction has been lively. On Twitter, for example, one user said the Roseys crusade was inspiration to join an advertising federation for the first time. Another wondered how effective the campaign would be, asking "Why is PDX repped as the chip-on-its-shoulder city?"

Ant Hill and the rest of the ad community knew that Roseys promotions walked a fine line, says Jamie Sexton, ad federation director. And that's a good thing.

"We want to be provocative and we want to be innovative," she says. "The worst thing in the world we could do is be boring."

Laura Oppenheimer: 503-294-7669; loppenheimer@news.oregonian.com

-----

To see more of The Oregonian, or to subscribe the newspaper, go to http://www.oregonian.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.