BBDO Worldwide held a firm grip on the overall Network of the Year title, retaining the honour for its third consecutive year. At the centre of the success was a performance from its UK arm, AMV BBDO, leading the way with four Grand Prix, while eight offices around the globe contributed to the title, says the awards.
The same can be said for Serviceplan Group, which won points with a wide range of winning work to retain Independent Network of the Year, adds the awards.
A standout newcomer at the Cresta top table, BigTime Creative Shop, took Independent Agency of the Year. This delivered a breakthrough for the Middle East advertising scene, being the first agency from the region to take this global title. The victory was built on the large-scale epics the agency produced to promote the Riyadh Season events, says the awards.
A first was also recorded with the prestigious Jury Chair Awards, which are in the personal gift of the Cresta chair, who this year was Helen Pak, SVP of Creative Marketing, Design and Content at Disney. Both winners selected by Pak were created by Dentsu Creative offices, an unprecedented dominance of the honour for one network, adds the awards.
From Spain came a challenging campaign for History Channel, History Outnumbered, which used Holocaust survivors' tattooed numbers to represent the rising tide of hate-crime statistics. From New York, Returning Creativity for Crayola encouraged parents to nurture creativity in their children through a nationwide campaign that reconnected childhood drawings with their grown-up creators, says the awards.
Production Company of the Year went for the third year in succession to Riff Raff Films. Two films in particular led the trophy haul for the London-based production company, Wherever You Go for Telstra in Australia, and also The Gifting Hour for John Lewis in the UK, adds the awards.
Cresta CEO Lewis Blackwell said that the 2025 special award winners, "... reinforce a key factor about great creativity: building a long-term creative culture is vital for ongoing success. It underpins why we are seeing remarkable, lasting, year-on-year performance from our leading entrants. This is inevitably built on year-on-year performance for their clients. BBDO took two long-term creativity Grand Prix for clients — for Libresse in the UK and AnNahar newspaper in Lebanon — which recognised years of awesome innovation in brand-building and effective work being created for those clients."
He reserved a special mention for BigTime Creative Shop as well. "It's a real marker for how fast and strongly the Middle East creative scene has developed that this Riyadh-based team could win the global independent agency award. We also saw great entries from the likes of Publicis ME, Horizon FCB, and others, while Impact BBDO took a Grand Prix and was an important component in the overall BBDO success. This region is growing so fast in advertising quality," concludes Blackwell.
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*Image courtesy of contributor