Presenting the top winners of our 2014 Awards Report, which features the most creatively celebrated companies and personalities of the year. Our survey tallies the results from the nine most-respected industry awards shows: Art Directors Club, Association of Independent Commercial Producers, the Andy Awards, the Cannes International Festival of Creativity, the Clios, D&AD, The One Show, the Webby Awards and the Festival of Media.
Each award won is assigned a point value according to the weight and preciousness of the honor. Those point totals then determine the most-awarded companies, campaigns and people, across a number of categories.
See the full lists and winning work here, including the 25 most-celebrated advertisers, as well as the top ten lists of the most-awarded agencies, campaigns, creative directors, networks, directors, production companies and more.
Here's a recap of the big winners:
Fueled by numerous wins across the industry shows for its "Live Test Series" campaign, Volvo knocked last year's chart-topper, Unilever, out of the #1 slot as this year's most-awarded advertiser. Unilever took a respectable second place, however, thanks to a range of wins by several brands, including Axe/Lynx, Dove and more.
Long a creative powerhouse, the Swedish shop rose to the top of the agency list thanks to the stellar performance of the Volvo "Live Test Series " B-to-B campaign for the brand's trucks, featuring the massive viral hit "Epic Split." But Jean-Claude Van Damme wasn't pulling all the weight. The agency also earned nods for work for Helly Hansen, UNICEF and the Volvo XC60.
While Van Damme became the face of this campaign, his "Epic Split" was just one in a series of many outrageous product demo films showcasing the features of Volvo trucks. Together, they made for the year's most awarded campaign, earning multiple Best of Show wins across the industry festivals. Beyond plaudits, the campaign set a new standard in creativity -- and entertainment -- in the business-to-business sector.
Ogilvy & Mather pulled a repeat this year, and once again nabbed the top seat of the agency network charts. Big winners for the net included Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign, work for IBM and Coca-Cola, as well as British Airways' impressive outdoor digital campaign,"Magic of Flying."
Omnicom reclaimed the top spot on the agency company chart in 2014, after falling #2 to WPP last year. DDB's celebrated "Sorry, I Spent It on Myself" campaign, another of the year's most awarded efforts, TBWA's work for Apple including "Misunderstood" (via MAL) and "Intention" (via MAL), the GayTM campaign for ANZ Bank (via Whybin), adidas' "D Rose Jump Store" (via London) were some of the big winners that helped Omnicom nab the top spot.
Droga5 frontman David Droga claimed the top seat of the CCO list, thanks to his agency's diverse output of work, which included Newcastle's "If We Made It" piss take on Super Bowl advertising, tech innovations Thunderclap and Birdseye, and clever integrated work for the New Museum, Prudential and more. CAA Marketing co-CCO Jesse Coulter followed in second, thanks to continued success with Chipotle on "The Scarecrow," while Droga5 New York CCO Ted Royer ranked third.
Wieden & Kennedy global ECD Susan Hoffman, the most awarded creative director in 2012, was back on top of the CD chart this year, propelled by more excellent work for Nike, Old Spice , P&G and Dodge. Fellow ECD Joe Staples took number #2, followed by CAA Marketing's Angie Sun, Todd Hunter and Tony Fur in the #3 slot.
Art directors Anders Eklind and Sophia Lindholm and copywriters Bjorn Engstrom and Martin Ringqvist took the top slots on their respective charts as the creatives behind Volvo's "Live Test Series" campaign. For two years, the team worked hand-in-hand with the client, along with Volvo's engineers, to come up with the over-the-top demo films touting the merits of the automaker's trucks. Unlike a lot of branded films we see these days, what made the films special was that, as Mr. Engstrom told Ad Age, "They're not stunts, we're demonstrating the products in a relevant way."
Volvo helped make a chart-topper in the director category too, sending Andreas Nilsson to #1 for his work on "Epic Split." He was followed by Limbert Fabian and Brandon Oldenburg, the team from Moonbot Studios who directed Chipotle's "The Scarecrow."
Folke Film, the Swedish production company that repped director Andreas Nilsson during production of Volvo's "Epic Split," surpassed big guns MJZ and Smuggler to claim the top spot this year. Last year's #1 company, MJZ, dropped to second, with wins for 10+ different clients, including Old Spice, Guinness, Nike, DirecTV, Carlsberg, Heineken, Oreo and others, while Smuggler took third thanks to its work on Newcastle's "If We Made It," Volvo's "Live Test Series" and more.