The AICP Awards Honors the Best Advertising of the Year

The year’s best advertising was honored at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) at a gala AICP Awards celebration and screening that took place on Thursday, June 4, 2026.

Since 1992, AICP has hosted this industry-wide celebration at MoMA to honor the winning work, which is annually made a part of the archives of the museum’s Department of Film.

Winners for the 2026 AICP Show: The Art & Technique of the Commercial, the AICP Next Awards and the AICP Post Awards premiered earlier in the week. The top winners in each competition – the AICP Show’s Advertising Excellence and Advertising Excellence/Campaign categories, the Next Awards’ Most Next winner and the Post Awards’ Best of Show honoree – were highlighted at a presentation at MoMA, followed by a gala celebration. The AICP Next Awards Premiere and Reception was held at The Times Center on June 2, with the AICP Show premiere screening on June 3 at MoMA and the AICP Post Awards debut earlier in the day on June 4, also at MoMA. 

The winning entries for 2026, as well as each year’s collection of winners, can be viewed exclusively at www.aicpawards.com, the AICP Awards Archive website.

Judging for each of the three AICP Awards competitions were led by their respective Chairpersons: Michelle Ross, Founder/Managing Director of Superprime, and Chairperson of the AICP Show; Jimmy Smith, Chairman/CEO/Chief Creative Officer of Amusement Park Entertainment and Judging Chair for the AICP Next Awards; and Gloria Pitagorsky, Managing Partner at Heard City and Chairperson of the AICP Post Awards.

Ross and Pitagorsky, along with AICP CEO Matt Miller, headlined tonight’s MoMA gala and shared the winners with an assembled audience from a cross-section of the industry, including marketers, agency, production and post production ranks executives and artists.

The AICP Show’s Top Honorees

The Advertising Excellence winner in the AICP Show went to “I’m Not Remarkable” for Apple, directed by Kim Gehrig of somesuch. The piece was also a winner in Cause, Performance and Direction.

The winner for Advertising Excellence/Campaign was “A Time and a Place” for Claude, comprising the ads “Can I Get A Six Pack Quickly?,” “How Can I Communicate Better With My Mom?” and “What Do You Think of My Business Idea?” All three pieces were directed by Jeff Low of Biscuit Filmworks. “Can I Get A Six Pack Quickly?” additionally won in Concept. 

The most-awarded production company in the AICP Show was MJZ, with 11 honors, including a co-production with Business Club, followed by somesuch, with five wins; and Superprime with four wins. 

The most honored directors in the AICP Show for 2026 were: Kim Gehrig of somesuch with five wins; Spike Jonze of MJZ scored four honors, while Oscar Hudson of MJZ and Yorgos Lanthimos of Superprime each earned three wins. The winner of Best New Director is Adrian Villagomez, who was honored for “Kyiv” for APASHE & ALINA PASH, which was produced by Fela. 

The most honored agency in the AICP Show was Mother, with four wins. Heimat\TBWA, Isle of Any, the in-house agency at Squarespace, and Wieden+Kennedy all received three wins. BBH USA and McCann scored two honors each. 

The most honored brand in the AICP Show is Apple, with six wins, followed by Coinbase, HORNBACH, and Squarespace, all of whom earned three wins. 

The AICP Next Awards Top Winners

The Most Next honor, the AICP Next Awards’ Best of Show winner, went to Gusher’s “FruitHead” directed by Mike Diva for Imagine Entertainment and produced by Lord Danger.  “FruitHead” is a horror short riffing on a 90s-era Gushers commercial called “FruitHead,” and features Bradley Whitford and Chester Collins. The piece won for Branded Content & Entertainment: Standalone/Single Execution. 

As the winning entrant of Most Next, Imagine Entertainment directed a $10,000 grant from the AICP Foundation to the  Kids in Need Foundation as the recipient for the $10,000 AICP grant. The mission of the Kids In Need Foundation (KINF), is to create equitable learning spaces by providing essential supplies and support to under-resourced students and teachers across the country. KINF is dedicated to serving schools where 70% or more of students are eligible for free or reduced-cost meals through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP).

The most honored agencies at the Next Awards this year were: BarkleyOKRP and R/GA with three wins; and Imagine Entertainment, the in-house agency for Salesforce, and TBWA\Media Arts Lab with two honors each. 

Leading the list of most honored production or development companies at the Next Awards this year with two honors each were: Breakwater Studios, Caviar, and Lord Danger. 

The most honored brands at the Next Awards were Frontier Airlines with three wins, and Gushers, L’Oréal Paris, and Salesforce with two honors each. 

The AICP Post Awards Top Winners

Winners of the AICP Post Awards acknowledge the work of the individual post production artists behind the winning pieces. The Best of Show winner this year went to editors Tim Johnson and Mónica Salazar for “The Final Copy of Ilon Specht,” done via McCann for L’Oréal Paris. The piece was directed by Ben Proudfoot through Breakwater Studios, which also served as the post production company. “The Final Copy of Ilon Specht” also won for Editorial: Fashion/Beauty and Editorial: Docu-Style. Johnson and Mónica Salazar were the most honored artists in the Post Awards on the strength of the piece. 

The most honored agency at the Post Awards was McCann with three honors, while the most honored brand in the Post Awards was L’Oréal Paris, also with three wins.

Speaking at the gala, AICP President and CEO Matt Miller noted that AICP this year had instituted a new honor, The Advocate Award, which was presented to Susan Credle, Global Creative Advisor, Omnicom, in recognition of her longstanding support for the creative community in advertising. Miller said it was the highest honor ever awarded to a non-member of AICP.

Citing the Awards’ presence at MoMA, now in its 34th year, he added, “At the core of what we do is award great work and try to move the bar forward.”

Sponsors help make all the AICP awards competitions and events possible. AICP Partners and Supporting Partners, who support all AICP events throughout the year, are Cast & Crew Commercials; Musicbed + Filmsupply; Universal Production Services; Wrapbook; Film Hawaii; NEED Financial Services; and Sony Pictures Studios.

The list of 2026 AICP Awards Sponsors Benefactors includes: 1Park9; Apache Digital; Aspen Travel; Audio Spectrum; AwardCore; Be Electric; BIG Digital; Colorlab; Cosmo Street Editorial; Cut+Run; Cutters; Directors Guild of America; Ellenoff Grossman & Schole LLP; Heard City; IDC; Istros Media Corporation; JMR Equipment Rentals; Kodak Motion Picture Film; LBBonline – Little Black Book; Optimus; PS260; PSYOP; SDN; SHOOT Magazine/SHOOTonline; shots; and TCS, Inc.

The 2026 AICP Awards Patrons include The Roots Production Services; SAG-AFTRA; and Voices.

PSYOP created the graphics and design language for all three competitions, with music and sound design produced by Take Your Medicine. All showreel editing was performed by Cutters.

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 12 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.

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.