The AICP Awards Honours The Best Advertising of the Year

Winners of the AICP Show: The Art & Technique of the Commercial were presented tonight at a special virtual premiere held in lieu of the annual gala premiere at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), due to the coronavirus pandemic. Together with the AICP Next Awards, which were presented online on June 16th, and the AICP Post Awards, which were also presented virtually on June 17th, they comprise the AICP Awards suite of competitions.

Ali Brown, President/Executive Producer of PRETTYBIRD, was Chairperson of the AICP Show, while Tiffany Rolfe, EVP and US Chief Creative Officer for R/GA, was the AICP Next Awards Judging Chair. Chris Franklin, Owner and Editor of Big Sky Edit, served as the AICP Post Awards Chair. 

Each category of the AICP Show may have up to three winners, with the exception of Advertising Excellence/Single Commercial, Advertising Excellence/Campaign and Best New Director, which each have only one honouree. 

“The Epidemic” for Monica Lewinsky, created by BBDO New York and directed by Cole Webley of Sanctuary, was honoured for Advertising Excellence/Single Commercial. The film illustrates the damaging effects of cyber-bullying as it wreaks havoc on the life of a teenage girl. It was also honoured in the categories of Performance, Concept and Public Service Announcement. 

Owing to restrictions placed on jury deliberations due to the pandemic, the AICP Awards did not name a Marketer of the Year honour for 2020. That award will return with the AICP Awards for 2021. The 2020 award for Best New Director was presented to Olivia Wilde of Anonymous Content for HP’s “Wake Up.” 

All of this year’s winners – along with the entire AICP Show and AICP Next Awards archive – are available for viewing at www.aicpawards.com. To view this year’s winners at the AICP Post Awards, visit their awards site at http://www.aicppostawards.com/.

The most honoured production company in the AICP Show was SMUGGLER, with five honors, followed by MJZ, O Positive and Sanctuary, which each earned four hon-ors. Pulse Films earned three honours. 

Among directors honoured at the AICP Show, Cole Webley of Sanctuary received four honors, while Oscar Hudson of Pulse Films and Jim Jenkins of O Positive each received three honours. 

On the agency front, BBDO New York earned six honours at the AICP Show, followed by Highdive with four and 72andSunny, TBWA\Chiat\Day and Wieden+Kennedy with three each. 

Topping the list of honored brands at the AICP Show was Apple, which won in five categories, followed by Monica Lewinsky, who won in four. Fiat Chrysler’s Jeep brand won in three, followed by the double winners IKEA, Sandy Hook Promise, Smirnoff and Ubisoft. 

O Positive was the most honoured production company across all three AICP Awards Show, with 11 mentions, MJZ followed with 10 honours; m ss ng  p eces and SMUGGLER each received six nods. 

Jim Jenkins of O Positive was the most honoured director with eight wins; Cole Webley of Sanctuary Content received five honours; while Rupert Sanders of MJZ earned four mentions. 

Grant Gustafson of Cutters was the most honoured editor across the shows, with seven mentions. Paul Martinez of Arcade Edit followed with five mentions.

Each year, the honoured work from both the AICP Show and the Next Awards are pre-served in The Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Film’s state of the art archives for future generations to study, and are available for use or exhibition by the muse-um’s curators. The collection numbers over 2,000 pieces of advertising in the motion image. 

In addition, AICP conducted a series of online panel discussions focusing on key shortlisted entries across the three awards competitions, featuring respective members of the entries’ client, agency and production teams offering insights into the honoured work. Among the AICP Show winners included in this series, which can be viewed here, are “The Epidemic” from Monica Lewinsky; the NFL’s “Next 100,” which won in Production; Sandy Hook Promise’s “Back to School Essentials,” which won in Public Service Announcement and Concept; and “Only Slightly More (Exaggerated)” from Travel Oregon, which won in Animation and Design. 

The Art & Technique of the Commercial has a bifurcated judging system, which begins with a series of judging panels featuring over 400 judges from across the country and around the world, with experts in various fields judging work across the 22 categories. 

Tendril was well underway to create the opening titles, but pivoted to creating a simplified opening sequence for the virtual presentation. Music for the virtual show was composed by Robert Miller at RNDM ORDR. In addition, the AICP Awards sponsor reel, which plays at the start of each AICP Week virtual awards show, was created by Framestore, with music by Human. 

Sponsors play an all-important role making AICP Week events possible. AICP Part-ners and Supporting Partners, who support all AICP events throughout the year, are CAPS – A Cast & Crew Company and Universal Studios (Partners); and Film Offices of The Hawaiian Islands; Musicbed + Filmsupply; Simian; Sony Pictures Studios; and The TEAM Companies (Supporting Partners). 

Sponsoring the full complement of AICP Awards virtual presentations are ABK + Bo-gart’s Spirits, Aspen Travel, AwardCore, Bikini Lists, City National Bank, Color Lab, Cosmo Street Editorial, Cutters Studios, Flavor, Framestore, Global Production Network, Hello World Communications, Human, In-ternational Digital Centre, Inc., Island Film Group, Istros Media Corporation, Kane Kessler, Kodak Film, Little Black Book, LVLY, m ss ng p eces, PSP Production Portugal, Spain & Malta, Red Studios Hollywood, RNDM ORDR, SHOOT Magazine | SHOOTonline, Source | SHOTS | Slate, S’well, SyncFloor, Taylor & Taylor Associates Inc., Tendril, The Roots Production Service, Warner Brothers Studios and Yessian.