Inside the Jury Room: United States Judging Sees Nine Projects Get One Step Closer to Immortality

On Wednesday, November 2nd, the North American judging sessions continued as the US jury day took place. In partnership with JSM Music, and hosted at the offices of The Mill - global partner of the Immortal Awards - jurors took on the responsibility of selecting finalists from the States to put forward to the North American finals. 

The US jury was comprised of industry experts from some of the top agencies, production companies and post houses in the world, including: Chuck McBride (founder and chief creative officer, Cutwater), David Rolfe (global head of production, WPP and Hogarth), Davud Karbassioun (president, Pulse Films), Jaz Rongokea (head of production, The Mill New York), Jeff Fiorello (executive producer, JSM Music), Laura Fegley (chief creative officer, BBDO Minneapolis), Lora Schulson (North American head of production, 72andSunny), Matthew Wood (partner and editor, Whitehouse Post) and Meg Farquhar (EVP executive creative director, DDB Chicago).

As the US market contributed the highest number of entries to the Immortal Awards this year (over 400 entries), the jurors had their work cut out for them - adjudicating over the longest shortlist the competition has seen thus far. 

"Following a fantastic Canadian session in Toronto, it was great to head to New York and bring our US jury together in person for the first time,” said Paul Monan, awards director at Little Black Book. “The US is an important market for LBB, and we see a huge number of Immortals entries from around the country, so the standard of work that makes this shortlist is incredibly high.”

Evaluating each of the 36 shortlisted entries and deciding which has the potential to be ‘Immortal’ was no mean feat, but the jury finally landed on nine projects that would go through to join the 11 finalists from the Canadian jury day at the North American round of judging.

“Our jurors did an amazing job of whittling down the shortlist and landed on nine projects that have a real shot of going far into the competition,” Paul added. “A huge thanks to JSM for supporting our US jury, The Whitehouse for its continued support in North America, and The Mill for supporting us globally - without their support, getting these world-class jurors together simply wouldn't be possible."

The Immortal Awards 2022 US Finalists are:

Apple - Escape From the Office (submitted by SMUGGLER and WORK LA)

Apple iPhone 13 Pro - Hollywood in Your Pocket: Detectives (submitted by O Positive)

Call of Duty - Warzone in Paradise (submitted by 72andSunny LA)

Coors Light - Chillboards (submitted by DDB Chicago, adam&eveDDB and Carbon)

Miller Light - Beer Drops (submitted by DDB Chicago)

PERIOD., Free the Period, No More Secrets, The Flow Initiative, Ignite - Loopholes (submitted by 72andSunny NY)

Sandy Hook Promise - Teenage Dream (submitted by BBDO New York and SMUGGLER)

Skittles - Apologize the Rainbow (submitted by DDB Chicago)

WhatsApp - One (submitted by Company 3)

The shortlist initially presented an abundance of technology-based triumphs from some giant names in tech - Apple, Meta and Google to name a few. After great debate and much comparison between all of the ‘tech’ films, the jurors singled out their favourites and voted to put through Apple's ‘Escape from the Office’ and ‘Detectives’, as well as Whatsapp's ‘One’.

Where there was little debate, however, was with Sandy Hook Promise’s ‘Teenage Dream’ campaign. In the first session, all of the judges came to a unanimous decision and gave the project full approval. With no doubts as to whether it should advance to the next round of judging, the entire room praised the project’s ability to live up to the high expectations set by the client’s previous work.

Whilst unanimity of the judges’ opinion is often a sure-fire way of evaluating the quality and potential for Immortality of a project, where some pieces come to life is in the jury room conversations. One such piece was Call of Duty’s ‘Warzone in Paradise’. After discussions between the jurors, this finalist only grew in popularity, and the general consensus was that the twist on influencer content was genius - riffing on influencer culture in a wholly novel and unique way.

Now that US and Canadian judging has taken place, it comes time for the North American regional judging, where the best work from the USA and Canada will then qualify for the final, global round, taking place on December 1st. Here, the finalists from every region worldwide will compete for an Immortal Award or Commendation status.