Cresta Awards: BBDO – Network of the Year, Serviceplan Group – Independent Network of the Year, Tech& Soul – Independent Agency of the Year

The final release of this year’s Cresta winners has seen the reinvigorated organisation reveal its special honours for the year— including a surprise selection — to focus the spotlight tightly on its standout performers.

BBDO Worldwide has, for the first time since 2015, seized the crown of the Cresta Network of the Year. This builds out of the performance of its UK office, AMV BBDO, who also triumphed as Cresta Agency of the Year. The latter was a result of a storming multi-award performance for the Viva La Vulva campaign. Strong contributions by BBDO NY, Energy BBDO, BBDO Atlanta and Darwin BBDO also underpinned the network supremacy.

 BBDO was almost unrivalled in the scale of its wins across our competitions this year (…) The network scored extremely highly and extensively across multiple entries and offices, with AMV BBDO leading the charge.

Alan Page,

President Cresta

Newly created honors are also being presented to Serviceplan Group as the Independent Network of the Year, and to the Brazilian agency Tech & Soul as Independent Agency of the Year. Serviceplan stood out in particular for its digital skills, notably on the Dot.Mini project, while the ‘Distracted Goalkeeper’ campaign was an exceptional performer for the young Sao Paolo based independent.

The above awards were strictly determined by cumulative award wins (with more points assigned for a Grand Prix than a Gold, and so on) but Cresta has added an innovative new Jury Award in the personal gift of the Jury Chair.

This year that decision was the responsibility of Anna Qvennerstedt, the much-lauded copywriter and creative director who is chair of the board at Forsman & Bodenfors in Stockholm. She chose ‘Go Back To Africa’, a highly provocative and technologically innovative campaign from FCB/SIX of Toronto for the travel company Black And Abroad. She explained her choice, which elevated a Silver winner up into one of the top five special mentions:

I love this campaign for several reasons. It is an inspiring example of how AI and data can inform creative excellence, how it can help this us become more relevant and actually change opinions and challenge misconceptions. I love the wit and the intelligence of the creative idea, how it automatically turns a very negative notion into something positive without being one bit pretentious. And last but not least, it shows why we need diverse perspectives in this industry.

Overall, though, it would seem to be BBDO’s year at Cresta – most wins, top agency, top network. On hearing of the new honours, David Lubars, Chief Creative Office BBDO Worldwide & Chairman BBDO North America, commented:

Cresta has recently revamped, enhanced and bettered its competition.  It’s a great feeling to know that BBDO and AMV BBDO have been recognized as Network and Agency of the Year, respectively, under these more challenging guidelines.