The AICP Awards Announces 2023 Winners

The year’s best advertising was saluted tonight 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 honoree – 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 tonight’s MoMA gala and shared the winners with an assembled audience of hundreds of professionals from the brand, agency, production and post production ranks. 

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, and 'Precious Cargo', directed by Melina Matsoukas of de la revolución. The campaign was created by Droga5. 

'Precious Cargo'

The Advertising Excellence winner in the AICP Show went to 'The Greatest' for Apple, directed by Kim Gehring 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.  (King SHE created this piece with Every Other, and are now part of the Somesuch roster).

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

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 organizations, 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. 

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 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. 

This year’s honoree for the AICP Post Impact Award was Hank Corwin, founder of Lost Planet, who was honoured at a ceremony earlier in the day which took place at MoMA. An award-winning editor of both commercials and feature films, Corwin was recognised for elevating the role of the editor specifically, and the contributions of post production artists in general, to the overall creative impact of a piece of motion content. Artists and executives who worked under him have carried on his tradition of excellence, while his influence on how post production artists approach their work has stretched beyond commercials, to include people working on everything from films to TV series to music videos.

Sponsors help make all of the AICP awards competitions and events possible. AICP Partners and Supporting Partners, who support all AICP events throughout the year, are: Cast & Crew, Advertising & Short Form Production; Universal Production Services; Wrapbook; Film Hawaii; Musicbed + Film Supply; NEED Financial Services, Inc.; Sony Pictures Studios and SoStereo.

2023 AICP Awards Sponsors Benefactors include Another Country; Aspen Travel; AwardCore; Cabin Editing Company; Carbon; Colorlab; Company 3; Cut+Run; Cutters; Directors Guild of America; Flavor; Heard City; International Digital Centre, Inc. – IDC; Istros Media Corporation; Kodak Motion Picture Film; LBBonline - Little Black Book; Optimus; SHOOT Magazine / SHOOTonline; Source Shots Slate; S’well; and Whitehouse Post.

2023 AICP Awards Patrons include asche & spencer, BMG Production Music, Island Film Group, Quixote, SAG-AFTRA, Silvercup Studios, The Roots Production Services and Vagabond Production Services.

Flavor created the graphics and design language for all three competitions, with music and sound design produced by Another Country. All showreel editing was performed at Cutters.

Established in 1992, The AICP Show is one of the most important advertising showcases in the world that’s dedicated to excellence in craft. The AICP Post Awards, which debuted in 2001, honours excellence in a wide range of post production crafts and disciplines. And the AICP Next Awards, launched in 2007, highlights the winners of the 11 Next categories, which honour innovative marketing communications. 

Honorees of  the AICP Show, The AICP Next Awards and The AICP Post Awards are preserved 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 museum’s curators. All individual works and each year’s shows in their entirety can be viewed exclusively at www.aicpawards.com, the AICP Awards Archive website, while winners of the AICP Post winners can be viewed at www.aicppostawards.com. 2023 winners for all three competitions are available immediately at these addresses.