We made our yearly sojourn to AICP NY this month for the prom of commercial production held annually at the Museum of Modern Art. In addition to the evening screening lauding the year’s top ads and the cocktails and shenanigans afterward, the daytime agenda saw AICP honoring the best marketing communications across all channels featuring moving image media at the AICP Next Awards.

Work in five categories were recognized: Integrated Campaign, Viral/Web Film, Experiential, Website/Microsite and Product Integration. The winners, which as I write are picking up their awards at Cannes right now, included W+K's "Chalkbot" for Nike Livestrong for the Experiential category; W+K and Brand New School’s ESPN Monday Night Football interactive storefronts -- also for Experiential; BBDO’s HBO Cube and Chiat’s “Gatorade Replay” for Integrated Campaign, while OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass” music video (a personal fave - go Syyn Labs) picked up recognition in the Viral/Web Film category.

We were pretty wowed by the quality of this year’s submissions. And while we may have ‘experienced’ the work from our desks on Creativity-Online and other sites, being at the AICP Next Awards allowed us to take in the depth and breadth of the campaigns in a way that showcased how tightly woven these integrated efforts were -- and how each of the campaign components stood on its own as a unique storytelling device.

To view the list of winners: http://www.aicp.com/#/news_and_views/news_from_aicp/201006080/

Ed Ulbrich from Digital Domain and Mothership, a Raz PR client, was also invited by DGFastchannel to speak about 3D commercial production during an afternoon panel held at the Directors Guild Theater. Check out the event recap from Stuart Elliott of the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/business/media/10adco.html?ref=threedimensional_devices