7th September 2022 – This year, Creativepool is celebrating 10 years of creative excellence with the eighth edition of the Creativepool Annual. And what a decade it’s been!
The Creativepool Annual 2023 winners represent the cream of the crop when it comes to creative excellence, and we’re honoured to present this year’s winners with a platform that will allow them to share their work and shine in front of the entire industry.
The Creativepool Annual 2023 is a chance for the entire industry to celebrate a global mix of agencies, brands and individuals, all of which have been whittled down from thousands of entries.
Creativepool handed out over 250 prizes at the Annual launch party last night, including 18 prestigious Gold awards. This year has seen some of the most awe-inspiring work in the Annual’s history and we can’t wait to see how you’re all going to top yourselves again next year.
10 Years on Top
Our 10th-anniversary edition gives us the chance to reflect on how far we’ve all come collectively as an industry in a decade that has been far from plain sailing for so many of us.
10 years ago, The Annual started life as a humble A5 booklet used to promote a few select member’s work. It wasn't even an awards per-say, just "us" choosing whose work we liked from the network. As the community has grown on Creativepool, so has the awards.
Once we got started as a "true" awards, we kicked off with just 14 categories and around 60 judges. But, in keeping with how we run the wider platform (and in keeping with the Creativepool ethos), we always wanted to keep innovating and growing, to make our awards the "most" award in the industry. This means each year looking at how we can make being a part of The Annual the most rewarding award in the industry.
In our 1-year journey, we’ve introduced a number of firsts for the industry. In 2016 we launched the creative industries only People's Choice portion of the awards and upgraded The Annual to the more substantial book format you are currently holding. To help our community grow and learn we now send out judges’ feedback to all that are shortlisted.
To help highlight specific causes we have a free "Social Good" category and to help those whose work didn't get the attention it deserved we introduced "The Cutting Room Floor". On top of all this, over the years we have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to create a better awards platform, add categories to reflect the times and found new ways to promote and support everyone who takes part.
The Winners and Creative Leaders of the Year
The highest honour, Agency of the Year, is awarded to Grey, an agency that continues to set the standards in ad land. Other companies that have proven themselves in the eyes of their creative peers this year include Gousto, who not only claim Brand Team of the Year but the people’s choice award as well.
BBD Perfect Storm, meanwhile, scooped Independent Agency of the Year, while B-Reel took home the honour of best Small Agency. In other big agency wins, Edelman were named PR Agency of the Year and Where Giants Roam earned the title of Creative Services Company of the Year.
As far as individual honours are concerned, we’d like to mention our Next Gen and Creative Leader winners, Jade Ang Jackman, Film Director at PRETTYBIRD and Laura Maness, Global CEO at Grey, respectively. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
View all the winners on this page.
Celebrating Creative Excellence
The Creativepool Annual represents not only a prestigious award but a chance for the creative industry to gather as one and celebrate the biggest of wins from the hardest of years.
After publication, over 5,000 copies of the Annual will be sent to some of the best companies in the world, so the work that’s worth being seen gets appreciated by the people at the head of the table.
Creativepool also gives 10% of all profits made by the Annual to Project Crimson, The Woodland Trust and The Nature Conservancy with the aim of offsetting the carbon footprint generated by creating the Annual by a minimum factor of 5!
This year, we’d also like to take some time and space to mention our Headline Partner, Audio Network, and thank them from the bottom of our hearts.
Creativepool Founder, Michael Tomes said: "It is such a privilege for me personally to see all the amazing work that gets entered each year. It makes me and my team very proud that each entrant has entrusted us to help promote their work. This year we crowned our second-ever Grand Prix award, with DEPT® getting the maximum score from all judges in the web category for their amazing work for The American Society for Deaf Children. As always, thank you to our incredible judging panel, all the companies and individuals who entered this year and our amazing and ever-growing community who make Creativepool, for me, the most exciting and inspiring place to be on the web.”
