The AICP Awards 2023 honours the best advertising of the year

The year’s best advertising was saluted at The Museum of Modern Art at a gala AICP Awards celebration and screening. 

Winners for the 2023 AICP Show: The Art & Technique of the Commercial, the AICP Next Awards and the AICP Post Awards premiered earlier in the week at MoMA. The top prizes in each competition, the AICP Show’s Advertising Excellence and Advertising Excellence/Campaign winners, the Next Awards’ Most Next winner and the Post Awards’ Best of Show honouree, were highlighted at a presentation at MoMA. The screening was followed by a reception in the museum.

Judging for each of the three AICP Awards competitions were led by their respective Chairpersons: Sally Campbell, Founding Partner of Somesuch, and Chairperson of the AICP Show; Greg Hahn, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Mischief, and Judging Chair for the AICP Next Awards; and Jen Dean, Senior Editor at Cut+Run, and Chairperson of the AICP Post Awards. The Chairs, along with AICP CEO Matt Miller, headlined the MoMA gala and shared the winners with an assembled audience of hundreds of professionals from the brand, agency, production and post production ranks. 

The AICP Show’s Top Honourees 

The Advertising Excellence/Campaign winner for the AICP Show went to Levi’s The Greatest Story Ever Worn campaign comprising the spots: Fair Exchange and Legends Never Die, directed by Martin de Thurah of Epoch Films, and Precious Cargo, directed by Melina Matsoukas of de la revolución. The campaign was created by Droga5. 

The Advertising Excellence winner in the AICP Show went to The Greatest for Apple, directed by Kim Gehrig of Somesuch and created by Apple. The piece was also a winner in the categories of Direction, Performance and Licensed Soundtrack or Arrangement. 

The most-awarded production companies in the AICP Show were SMUGGLER, with seven honours (one shared with Tempomedia), and the US and UK offices of Somesuch, which also earned seven honours. Partizan earned three honours, followed by Academy, MJZ and Pulse, with two honours each. 

The most honoured directors in the AICP Show for 2023 was Kim Gehrig of Somesuch, with six honours (one shared with Tajana Tokyo), followed by Aoife McArdle of SMUGGLER with four honours and Antoine Bardou-Jacquet of Partizan with three. The Best New Director honour went to the directing team King SHE of Every Other for their work on Diamonds for Apple Music.

The most honoured agency in the AICP Show was Apple, with six honours, followed by Squarespace, with four honors. BETC had three honours, while Droga5 and TBWA\Media Arts Lab had two honours each.

The AICP Next Awards Top Winners 

The Most Next Award, the AICP Next Awards’ Best of Show honour, went to McEnroe vs. McEnroe, created by FCB New York and produced by 456 Studios /Lord + Thomas. This entry was also a winner in the Experiential, Innovation and Creative Data categories. 

As the winner of Most Next, FCB New York directs a $5,000 grant from the AICP Foundation to an organisation of their choosing. The agency chose Move United, which provides  access and equal opportunity to participate in sports and recreation in their community, regardless of a person’s ability. Through its national network of more than 200 community member organisations, it offers programs in more than 70 different adaptive sports and serves over 100,000 individuals with disabilities of all ages each year.

The most honoured agency at the Next Awards this year was FCB New York, with five honours, followed by R/GA and TBWA\Chiat\Day with three honours and Mischief @ No Fixed Address and Goodby Silverstein & Partners with two.

The list of most honoured production or development companies this year included 456 Studios/Lord + Thomas, with four honours, followed by 1stAveMachine and Sanctuary Content with two honours. 

The most honoured brand at the Next Awards was Anheuser Busch Michelob ULTRA, with four honours, followed by Hilton and Procter & Gamble, with two honours each. 

The AICP Post Awards Top Winners 

Winners of the AICP Post Awards are presented to the individual post production artists behind the winning pieces. The Best of Show winner this year went to Editor Stephen Dunne of tenthree for Trust is Earned for the BBC, created by BBC Creative. The entry, directed by Billy Boyd Cape through Academy, also won in the categories of Montage and Existing Footage.

Dunne was also the most awarded artist in the AICP Post Awards this year, with three honours. He was followed by 2D Head of Department/VFX Supervisor Ryan Knowles and Head of CG/VFX Supervisor Greg McKneally of Electric Theatre Collective, with two honours. They won in the categories of Composting and CGI for Masterpiece for The Coca-Cola Company, created by BLITZWORKS.

Companies whose artists earned the most honours at the AICP Post Awards included tenthree, whose artists won three honours, followed by Cabin Editing Company and Electric Theatre Collective, whose artists earned two honours each. Cut+Run also earned two honours, one of which it shared with Rock Paper Scissors and The Quarry.

The most honoured agencies at the Post Awards were BBC Creative, which earned three honours, followed by Droga5 and BLITZWORKS, which earned two each. Most honoured brands included BBC and Levi’s, with three honours each, followed by adidas and The Coca-Cola Company, with two each.