The AICP Awards today released the Shortlists for the 2025 suite of juried competitions: The AICP Show: The Art & Technique of the Commercial, the AICP Next Awards and the AICP Post Awards. To review the full Shortlist for each competition, click here.
The Shortlists are the results of a bifurcated judging system that began earlier this year with a series of panels with experts in various fields from around the globe, nominated by their peers, who judged the work across their respective categories. The Curatorial Committees for all three shows serve as the final arbiters of the awards, confirming eligibility and appropriateness to category, as well as selecting the Best of Show for each competition. For the AICP Show, the Advertising Excellence/Campaign and Advertising Excellence winners are Best in Show; For the AICP Next Awards, it is the Most Next honor; and Best of Show for the AICP Post Awards.
Heading up these curatorial sessions were Patrick Milling Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of SMUGGLER and Chairperson of the AICP Show; Judy John, Global Chief Creative Officer at Edelman and Judging Chair for the AICP Next Awards; and James Razzall, U.S. President of Advertising at Framestore and Chairperson of the AICP Post Awards.
Honorees for all three competitions will be celebrated during AICP Week, which kicks off on June 3 in New York, and culminates in a presentation and gala at The Museum of Modern Art on June 5. Ticket information for AICP Week will be available soon.
The AICP Show Shortlist
Leading the list of production companies on the 2025 AICP Show Shortlist was SMUGGLER, with a total of 40 mentions across the Show’s 22 categories, which includes four in co-production with Exit Films and one co-production with Soft Citizen. Iconoclast came in second in the production company Shortlist count, with 17 entries, followed by MJZ with 16, which includes three mentions for a co-production with Business Club and one with Radke. Rounding out the top five production companies was Biscuit Filmworks with 15 entries, including five shared with Revolver and one with The Glue Society; and O Positive with 14 entries on the Shortlist.
The top agency on the AICP Show Shortlist this year was TBWA\Media Arts Lab, which scored 19 entries, representing work from various offices around its global network, followed by a trio of agencies: BBDO, which had 12 entries from offices within its network; Special Group, which had 12 entries shared between offices in Australia and the U.S.; and Wieden+Kennedy. Closing out the top five agencies was the in-house agency of Squarespace, which scored eight entries on the Shortlist.
The list of top brand achievements was dominated by Apple, represented with 21 Shortlisted entries, followed by Uber One/Uber Eats, with 14 mentions on the Shortlist. In third place were Libresse and Squarespace, both with eight Shortlist mentions, followed by Nike with seven entries on the Shortlist, which includes two for Jordan Brand.
The AICP Next Awards Shortlist
The AICP Next Awards recognize outstanding work and the creative forces behind it, but are much more than an Awards competition – Next is a platform for thought leadership and analysis, and recognizes work that points the way forward.
Leading the Next Award’s roster of Shortlisted brands was Apple, which scored nine spots on the Shortlist. Three brands were tied with five Shortlisted entries: AT&T Business; AB InBev, for Michelob ULTRA; and Google. Brands which scored four Next Awards Shortlist entries were Coordown; Facebook/Meta, which includes one entry for Ray Ban/Meta; Samsung; and Squarespace.
This year saw a three-way tie for the top Shortlisted agency in the Next Awards: earning nine entries were the New York and Chicago offices of FCB; offices of R/GA, including R/GA Japan; and TBWA\Media Arts Lab. Tied with seven Shortlisted entries were BBDO, including five entries shared with Critical Mass; Edelman; and Ogilvy New York.
SMUGGLER topped the roster of Next Awards Shortlisted production companies, with a total of 11 entries, followed by m ss ng p eces with nine. Rounding out the five top-ranked production companies are Biscuit Filmworks with seven Shortlisted entries, including two shared with Revolver and one with The Glue Society; The Mill, with five entries; and a trio of companies which earned four entries, including Indiana Production, Pulse Films and R/GA.
The AICP Post Awards Shortlist
The AICP Post Awards are unique among the AICP Awards in that they’re presented to individual post production artists. Topping the list of Shortlisted artists was Sam Ashwell, Creative Partner and Head Sound Engineer of 750mph, with seven Shortlisted entries, two of which were shared with Jake Ashwell, one with Mike Bovill and one with both Jake Ashwell and Mike Bovill.
Next in line were editors Geoff Hounsell of Arcade Edit, Graham Chisholm of Nimiopere Film Editorial and Rick Orrick of Work Editorial, all of whom earned six Shortlisted entries, with Orrick sharing one with editor Aika Miyake. Scoring four Shortlisted entries each were animation director Fabrice Fiteni of Electric Theater Collective, editor Matt Posey of PS260 and sound designer Steve Perski of Harbor.
In terms of aggregate Shortlist honors per post production company, artists associated with Electric Theater Collective earned 14 Shortlist mentions, followed by artists with Arcade Edit which earned 13. Rounding out the top five post companies were Work Editorial with 11 total Shortlist mentions, Untold Studios with nine and Cartel with eight.
The list of agencies whose work was recognized in the AICP Post Awards was led by Wieden+Kennedy, which netted 18 Shortlisted entries for work from various offices in its network, followed by the in-house agency at Apple with eight. Rounding out the top-ranked agencies were BigTime Creative Shop with seven Shortlist mentions and TBWA and Alto with six mentions each.
The list of brands whose work was recognized with Shortlist achievement in the Post Awards was dominated by Apple, with 14 mentions on the Shortlist, including work for Apple TV+ and the brand’s collaboration with recording artist Wren Evans, followed by Nike with 13 entries, which included two for Brand Jordan and one for its collaboration with musician Travis Scott. Other brand leaders in this year’s Post Awards Shortlist include Gucci with seven Shortlist mentions and Ford with five.
The Curatorial Meetings
The Curatorial committees for The AICP Show, The AICP Post Awards and The AICP Next Awards met April 2nd – April 4th in New York to determine the final disposition for each competition.
In attendance for the AICP Show were Patrick Milling-Smith, SMUGGLER; Chris Beresford-Hill, BBDO; Dražen Bošnjak, Q Department; Rankin Carroll, Mars; David Droga, Accenture Song; Mah Ferraz, Church Edit; Bianca Guimaraes, Mischief; Ralph Laucella, O Positive; Darren Lew, Cinematographer; Erika Madison, Anomaly; Tabitha Mason-Elliott, BARK BARK; Lisa Mehling, Chelsea; Kate Morrison, Google; Tor Myhren, Apple; Leo Premutico, Johannes Leonardo; C Prinz, SMUGGLER; Stuart Robinson, Subset Studio; Michelle Ross, Superprime; Henry-Alex Rubin, SMUGGLER; Amber Saunders, Cabin Editing Company; Joel Simon, JSM Music; and Iwan Zwarts, Blacksmith.
In attendance for the Next Awards were Jury Presidents and Curators at Large. In addition to Judy John of Edelman, the list included Tina Allan, FCB; Jason Campbell, Translation; Scott Donaton, Versus; Gerry Graf, SlapGlobal; Lauren Greenfield, Institute Pictures; Genie Gurnani, Wish For Genie; Greg Hahn, Mischief; Melle Hock, Edelman; Rei Inamoto, I&Co.; Margaret Johnson, Goodby Silverstein & Partners; Jeff Kling, Das Favorite; Jason Kreher, DE-YAN; Nick Law, Accenture Song; Pum Lefebure, Design Army; Mo Said, Mojo Supermarket; David “Shingy” Shing, Shingy; Leslie Sims; Jimmy Smith, Amusement Park Entertainment; and Shannon Washington, Gotham Inc.
In attendance for the AICP Post Awards, in addition to James Razzall of Framestore, were Marlo Caine, Cosmo Street; Phil Crowe, Parliament; Craig Duncan, Cutters Studios; Kat Friis, Meta; Trish Fuller, Work Editorial; Chris Gipson, Republic; Matthew Hilber, The Den; Fergus McCall, Rare Medium; Matt Nelson, Yessian; Vicky Osborn, Framestore; Stacy Peterson, Cut+Run; Kath Raisch, Company 3; Adam Reeves, TBWA\Canada; Sam Rice-Edwards, The Assembly Rooms, T. Terressa Tate, Heard City; Matt Turner, No. 8; Zamile Vilakazi, Burrell Communications; Anh Vu, Framestore Pictures; and James Dean Wells, Human.
Established in 1992, The AICP Show is the most important advertising showcase in the U.S. dedicated to excellence in craft. The AICP Post Awards, which debuted in 2001, honors excellence in a wide range of post production crafts and disciplines. And the AICP Next Awards, launched in 2007, highlights the winners of the 13 Next categories, which honor innovative marketing communications . Each show in the AICP Awards Suite is housed 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.
