For the second consecutive year, bicoastal/international MJZ topped the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) Show at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, this time with a total of eight honors. Fare directed by Dante Ariola, Tom Kuntz, Rupert Sanders, Nicolai Fuglsig and Phil Joanou led the way for MJZ at the 16th annual competition.
The AICP Show distinction continued a banner awards season for MJZ as earlier this year Ariola won the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award as best commercial director of 2006, with Kuntz also nominated for the DGA honor. Additionally, Kuntz’s Skittles commercials for TBWAChiatDay, New York, recently earned a Gold Pencil at the One Show, ANDY competition Gold, three Gold Art Directors Club Cubes and three Gold Clios. Now at the AICP Show proceedings held this week (June 5) at MoMA, Skittles’ “Leak” and “Trade” each earned an honor in the Humor category.
Ariola’s “Snowball” for Travelers Insurance via Fallon Minneapolis–an entry that helped him garner the DGA Award–copped honoree status in the AICP Show’s Visual Effects category (effects were done at WETA Digital, Wellington, N.Z.), as did the Sanders-helmed “Arboretum” for Sears and Y&R, Chicago (from visual effects house Method, Santa Monica), which additionally scored in the Agency Art Direction category for Y&R’s Isabela Ferreira and creative director/art director Mark Figliulo. The Fuglsig-directed American Legacy Foundation spot “Singing Cowboy” for Arnold Worldwide, Boston, and Crispin Porter+Bogusky, Miami, was honored in the PSA category.
And MJZ’s other two AICP Show honors came in the Original Music category for: Coca-Cola’s “Parade” directed by Ariola for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., with the music composers being Cyrus Melchor and Gus Koven of stimmung, Santa Monica; and the Joanou-directed “Blue” for Fruit of the Loom Blue’s Collection’s “Blue” out of The Richards Group, Dallas, with the composers being Roger and Scott Wojahn of Wojahn Bros. Music, Santa Monica.
For a full rundown of ‘ 07 AICP Show honorees click here.
Smuggler Right beyond MJZ with five AICP Show honors was bicoastal Smuggler, which scored in the Production and Cinematography categories for Vaseline’s “Sea of Skin” directed by Ivan Zacharias and shot by DP Jan Velicky for Bartle Bogle Hegarty, New York; in Production Design (production designer Stephen Sumney) for the Stylewar-directed “Ring” for eBay out of BBDO New York; in the Sound Design category for Sprite’s “Omnibus” directed by the Happy collective for Crispin Porter+Bogusky, Miami, with sound design by Bill Chesley of Amber Music, New York; and in the Advertising Excellence/Next category (recognizing excellence in nontraditional media forms) for the Randy Krallman-directed “Still Free” for Ecko Unlimited out of Droga5, New York.
Four score
Scoring four honors each were bicoastal/international houses Hungry Man and Moxie Pictures and bicoastal Anonymous Content. Moxie’s American Express spot “Wes Anderson,” directed by Anderson for Ogilvy & Mather, New York, was honored in the Visual Style and Advertising Excellence/Single Commercial categories. The latter carried additional weight in that for the first year the AICP Show set out to name one honoree in the Single Commercial category, giving it a best spot of show luster.
Meanwhile Moxie Pics’ Martin Granger directed a Humor category honoree: Combos’ “Videogame” for TBWAChiatDay, New York. And Combos’ “Fever,” also directed by Granger, earned a Copywriting honor for TBWAChiatDay writer Isaac Silvergate.
Hungry Man’s quartet of honorees included three Bryan Buckley-directed spots, each of which helped him earn a DGA Award nomination earlier this year: “More Mayo” for Burger King in the AICP Show’s Production Design category (production designer Gualter Pupo); Burger King’s “Manthem” which scored in the Musical Arrangement category (arranged by Beacon Street Studios’ Andrew Feltenstein and John Nau); and American Express’ “Animals” for Ogilvy, New York, which was honored in the Editorial category (editor Chris Franklin of Big Sky Editorial, New York).
Hungry Man’s fourth honoree was FedEX’s “Responsibilities” directed by Hank Perlman, which earned distinction in Copywriting for associate creative director Jim LeMaitre of BBDO New York.
Anonymous Content’s four honorees were: Levi’s Original 501’s “News Story” directed by Frank Budgen for Bartle Bogle Hegarty, New York, which scored in the Production category (produced in association with Gorgeous Enterprises, London); Xbox 360 Gears of War’s “Mad World” directed by Joseph Kosinski for McCann Worldgroup, which gained recognition in the Visual Effects category (produced with Digital Domain, Venice, Calif.); Nike Golf’s “Swing” directed by Malcolm Venville for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, which was honored in the Original Music category (from music creative director Dave Gold and composer Christopher Kemp of bicoastal Elias Arts); and Boots’ “Summer Rush” directed by Garth Davis for Mother, London, an honoree in the Advertising Excellence/International category.
Quartet of threes
There were four houses each garnering three AICP Show honors: bicoastal/international HSI Productions, New York-based Psyop, Park Pictures, New York, and Motion Theory, Venice, Calif.
HSI scored in the Production category with JC Penney’s “Crazy Beautiful” directed by Paul Hunter for DDB Chicago, in the PSA category for Equal Marriage’s “Coaster” directed by Max Vitali for Y&R, Chicago, and in the Advertising Excellence/Next category for Smirnoff’s “Tea Partay” spoof helmed by Julien Christian Lutz for Bartle Bogle Hegarty.
PSYOP’s trio of honorees consisted of: Coca-Cola’s “Happiness Factory” directed by Todd Mueller and Kylie Matulick for Wieden+Kennedy, Amsterdam, which registered in the Visual Style and Animation categories; and MTV HD’s “Crow” helmed by Marie Hayon and Marco Spier, honored in the Graphic Design category.
Park Pictures’ threesome was comprised of: Cingular’s “Battle” directed by Alison Maclean for BBDO New York, honored in the Performance/Dialogue or Monologue category; Nike Air Max 360’s “Defy” directed and shot by Joaquin Baca-Asay for Wieden+Kennedy, Amsterdam, which scored in Cinematography; and Diageo Captain Morgan’s “Cellphone” directed by Joachim Back for Grey Worldwide, New York, which registered in Sound Design (with Crandall Miller of The Whitehouse, Chicago, and Tom Goldblatt of audioEngine, New York, as sound designers).
Motion Theory‘s honorees were: Hewlett Packard HP Hands’ “Pharrell” directed by Matt Cullen for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, in the Agency Art Direction category (Pete Conolly, Stephen Goldblatt); and HP Hands’ “Jay-Z” and “Shaun White,” both in the Graphic Design category. Motion Theory’s graphic design artists on “Jay-Z” were Mathew Cullen and Kaan Atilla. Cullen and Mark Kudsi were graphic design artists on “Shaun White.”
Dynamic duos Both “Jay-Z” and “Shaun White” were directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Dayton/Faris) of Bob Industries, Santa Monica. Bob was one of three houses that came away with a pair of AICP Show honorees–the other two being Furlined, Santa Monica, and Egg, Cape Town, South Africa.
Arguably the biggest splash in this competition batch was made by Furlined in that for the first time the AICP Show instituted awarding for a single honoree in the Advertising Excellence/Campaign category (as also implemented in the earlier cited Advertising Excellence/Single Commercial category), making it the best of show campaign. This lead honor went to Geico’s “Airport,” “Topic” and “Therapy” directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon (Speck/Gordon) for The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va. “Therapy” was additionally honored in the Performance/Dialogue or Monologue category.
And Egg was honored in the Agency Art Direction (Jeff Blouin) and PSA categories for MTV Staying Alive’s “Fetish” directed by Brent Harris for Y&R, New York.
Among production companies to produce single honors were: bicoastal Epoch Films in the Visual Style category for Nike Zoom LeBron IV’s “Pool” directed by Stacy Wall for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland; Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles, in Performance/Dialogue or Monologue for Holiday Inn’s “Unicycle” directed by Tim Godsall for Fallon, Minneapolis; The Ebeling Group, bicoastal, for Microsoft Zune’s “Monsters” directed by Bitstate for 72andSunny, El Segundo, Calif.; Rogue Creative, London, in the Animation category for G4 Star Trek 2.0’s “Cribs” directed, animated and edited by Dan O’Brien and Nick Litwinko for 72andSunny; The Directors Bureau, Hollywood, in Sound Design (sound designers Drazen Bosnjak and Slo Anzulovic of Q Department, New York) for adidas Adicolor Podcast’s “Red” directed by Roman Coppola and Andy Bruntel for agency Idealogue, New York; bicoastal/international RSA Films in Musical Arrangement (Jeff Elmassian of Endless Noise, Santa Monica), for Garmin’s “Moose” directed by Acne for Fallon, Minneapolis; Nexus Productions, London, for Coca-Cola’s “Video Game,” also in the Musical Arrangement category (Amber Music, New York), directed by Smith & Foulkes for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland; House of Usher, Santa Monica, in the Low Budget category, for adidas 1 Basketball’s “3 Courts” directed by Kinka Usher for TBWAChiatDay, San Francisco; Hornet, New York, also in Low Budget, for G4’s “Sand” directed by Peter Sluszka for BBDO New York; Stink, London, in Advertising Excellence/International, for Toyota’s “Humanity” directed by Ne-O for Hakuhodo, Tokyo; and bicoastal/international @radical.media in Advertising Excellence/Next for Grey Goose Entertainment and Sundance Channel’s Iconoclasts, directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky.
While the AICP Show evening gala recognized all the competition categories, the morning program featured the first AICP Next Awards, which recognized the three winners of the Show’s new category, Advertising Excellence/Next: @radical.media’s Iconoclasts; Smuggler’s “Still Free” for Ecko Unlimited; and HSI’s “Tea Partay” for Smirnoff.
With key contributors to all three Next category honorees on hand, the a.m. session delved into the work’s creative genesis and strategy. For a full rundown of ‘ 07 AICP Show honorees click here.
