Seen and noted

BEST TV
Best: Dreamy 'The Exorcist'. Possessed with a late-night desire for Bubble Milk Tea, the spot takes several unexpected turns that surprise and delight. The spot uses comedy as the perfect medicine to help the product messaging go down.

Runner-up: Nike 'Footballverse'. It's hard not to love an ad that pits the world's greatest players against each other to put the question of "who was best" to rest. It's another great example of Nike embracing the joy of the game and not taking themselves too seriously.

BEST PRINT
Best: IMA 'Animal Trafficking'. There is a real sense of urgency and emotion conveyed visually by the calendar arrangement of the cage. An alternative transcreation to English might simply be "don't delay".

Runner-up: Libreria Nacional 'Abridged Version Moby Dick'. The misalignment of the image and book title captures your attention, and clearly shows what you are missing out of if you don't get the whole story.

BEST OUTDOOR
Best: Cadbury 'Secret Santa Postal Services'. The brand does what most brands forget to do at Christmas, and that's to not just encourage people to give (which leads to more buying), but to embody the spirit of giving in themselves. And it does it in a way that modernizes what Christmas looks like, while still retaining its magic.

Runner-up: Apple TV+ 'Matt'. Smart use of the voice of the most positive hometown college coach imaginable, a character known to cross into other sports, throwing his support behind a variety of local heroes in their hometowns.

BEST INTERACTIVE
Best: Gymshark 'Real Player Mode'. An incredibly deft way to get gamers to play the games they love in real life and to do so without dismissing video gaming in the slightest - in fact, the idea enhances that experience. The idea is very strong. I hope you continue to work to ensure the success of its adoption.

Runner-up: Intel and Dell Technologies 'eCycleLand'. The perfect place to get contributors to e-waste to care about recycling. This is the sort of idea that is needed to counter the doom messaging around our collective future with positivity and action.




This week's guest judge is Paul Meates, group creative director at Droga5 New York.

Paul Meates hails from Perth, Western Australia. Paul's work has been recognised with multiple Grand Prix awards, an Emmy nomination, exhibited at the High Museum in Chicago, and accepted into the MoMA archives in New York. He also has a beard and two sons he's awfully proud of.