BBDO has reclaimed the honour of being Network Of The Year at the Cresta Awards, after missing out last year for the first time since 2019.

David Lubars, chief creative officer of BBDO Worldwide, commented, “BBDO is proud to be the Cresta Network of the Year four times in the last five years,” he said. “It’s meaningful because Cresta is one of the really good ones. My thanks to our clients who always demand our best and our extraordinary BBDOers around the world.”

Serviceplan, last year’s overall network winner, is still riding high among the winners, though, retaining its hold on Independent Network Of The Year for the fifth year.

Alex Schill, global chief creative officer, Serviceplan Group, commented, “To be named Independent Network of the Year for the fifth time at prestigious Cresta Awards makes me feel unbelievably proud of all our teams, partners and clients who constantly believe in the power of ÜberCreativity. In a fragile world, creativity is the only peaceful weapon that has the power to drive change.”

Dentsu Creative Portugal has won Agency Of The Year for the first time. BBDO Canada is the runner-up, with Serviceplan Innovation and MullenLowe MENA equal third.

Lourenco Thomaz, chief Creative officer at Dentsu Creative Portugal, stated “It’s a great honour to be recognised as Cresta’s Agency of the Year. A first for the country, for us and for the network, it’s a proud moment. But most of all, it’s awesome to see the work we are making for our clients resonate globally, demonstrating the power of creativity to create culture , change society and invent the future.”

TRY, from Oslo, is also a new arrival at Cresta’s top table, winning the first-ever Small Network of the Year award.

And Production Company of the Year went to Soldats of Paris, who took a clutch of top craft awards with its film, The Store, for Renault.

The ‘Of The Year’ honours follow on from Cresta’s ‘firm and fair’ application of distinctive objective mathematical calculations in their judging, averaging the 120 independent jurors voting. The process for these final cumulative special awards looks across the total number of awards won, while weighting them for the standard achieved (Grand Prix through to Bronze) and range of projects represented.

“It’s great to see how freshly competitive our awards were this year. We have familiar names fighting for the top positions but also some new heroes emerging,” stated Lewis Blackwell, Cresta chief executive officer. “There’s a great breadth of entries, and an advancing range of skills being shown, that underpin these performances.”

A one-off Juror Award went to Edelman London and its entry, Mayo McHack. This is the only honour that doesn’t draw strictly on the maths of the awards won but assesses comments made by the jurors about the work.

One of the Grand Jury members, Kevin Mulroy, executive creative director at Mischief USA, commented, “I really love the Hellman’s Mayo McHack idea. They didn’t need an insight about the brand itself, but rather how people use it (or prefer to), played within the rules to break them, and the end result was funny and smart. Extra points for a good old-fashioned cease and desist.”

Unlike previous years, the President’s Award was not presented this year. It has been permanently withdrawn, following the death of Cresta’s co-leader and president, Alan Page, in May. Blackwell said that a new award in his business partner’s honour would be announced soon and that it would focus on areas that Page was particularly concerned to explore and celebrate through Cresta.

This year’s awards celebrate 30 years of the Cresta Awards, which now has entries from more than 70 countries. It was originally headquartered in New York but in recent years has been based out of London.