2023 Best of KSV Award Winners
KSV selected the best examples of creative excellence and technology innovation from across our global agency & startup community. Join us in celebrating this year's winners.
Forty Two Companies
KSV reviewed the work of forty two startups and agencies in our global network.
Fourteen Categories
Award categories span marketing, advertising, and digital experience innovation.
Ten Judges
Ten executives from KSV's Corporate Council voted for their top choices.
Gold Winners
METAVERSE
Bentley Systems & Imerza
BRANDING
Stellar Development Foundation &
Popcorn Brain
SONIC BRANDING
TikTok &
MassiveMusic
COMMERCIAL
Domino's & WorkInProgress
BRAND FILM
Virgin Galactic & Ataboy Studios
ANIMATION
Panda Express &
Kingdom of Something
VIRTUAL EVENT
XBOX &
BeCore
AUGMENTED REALITY
Red Bull &
Shape Immersive
CAMPAIGN
Toyota &
Spring Studios
E-COMMERCE
Sephora &
Lucky Labs
LOYALTY
The Outset &
Try Your Best
SALES ENABLEMENT
Evergreen &
UpTok
Best Metaverse
While much of the hype about metaverse activations have subsided, their are still many strong use-cases for why companies should consider extending into the virtual realm. KSV's judges looked not only for examples of creative excellence, but technological innovation. KSV selected Imerza's pioneering work in digital twins for both its hyper-realistic design with real-time data overlays that demonstrated a superior use-case for Bentley Systems.
Imerza worked directly with Bentley Systems to turn their design concepts into reality. The data inputs include the iTwin Platform, iTwin Capture, Google 3D tiles, BECS, AssetWise Linear Analytics, EMME, and 4D Analytics. Imerza compiled all of these into Unreal Engine 5 to create a true to life, photo-real, unified application with real-time data and immersive interactivity.
"The advancements in game engine technology continues to amaze me as we replicate the city of Singapore."
Christopher Gonzalez - VP of Product, Imerza
Best Branding
Fast-growing tech companies create the ultimate in brand challenges, since they rapidly-evolve both their products and positioning at various stages of growth. The Stellar Development Foundation fits this profile, with a high-tech offering that needed to reach the masses with a single, powerful, global message about the impact that Stellar's payment technology can make on the world. KSV's judges selected this work for both the creative excellence of the brand film and the equally impressive brand relaunch messaging, which was both clear and powerful.
Agency: Popcorn Brain
Client: Stellar Development Foundation
Project: Rebrand film
As part of Popcorn Brain's rebrand of Stellar Development Foundation, they created this brand film, starring Idris Elba.
"As always the process starts with deep research, trying to find the human angle of this society changing technology, through inspirational stories behind and in front of the tech."
- Diego Molina - Founder & Creative Director, Popcorn Brain
Best Sonic Branding
Crafting a sonic identify (audio and music) for one of the most widely recognized and used global social media platforms that captured the esscense of this community must have been an incredible challenge. Luckily, TikTok approached MassiveMusic, the world's foremost audio branding and music agency. Our judges selected this project on the grounds of how many people encounter TikTok each day around the world, as well as the truly beautiful tones, polish, and creativity exhibited.
Introducing the sound of creative democracy, a unique sonic identity that is already becoming known, loved and embraced by TikTok’s community. MassiveMusic composed and delivered a full sonic identity package that, since late 2022, has been integrated across all marketing content globally, as well as synced on TikTok’s off-platform end cards, when someone shares a TikTok on other platforms such as Instagram or YouTube, for instance.
"When they asked us for a sonic logo that could become a true embodiment of their brand and culture, we knew we had to make something as iconic as TikTok itself."
- MassiveMusic
Best Brand Film
A project of this ambition commands acknowledgment. With throw-back vibes to a time when the "space race" captivated the imagination of an entire generation, this project brings us on a ride to the cosmos and back again in a new era of space travel.
Corydon Wagner captures epic Live Action moments bringing surreal outer space experiences to life in this stunning new fan film for Virgin Galactic.
"Astronauts report the precise instant they behold earth for the first time floating amidst the still darkness, they experience a seismic internal awakening that renders them both insignificant in scale yet fulfilled with a renewed sense of purpose."
- Ataboy Studios
Best Commercial
Domino's leads the industry in both pizza and technology innovations. Therefore, having an agency that's good for more than just TV commercials is vital. The team at WorkInProgress advise Domino's not only on creative campaigns, but on digital innovations such as its recently rolled-out "Pinpoint Delivery Service" which delivers pizza to your exact coordinates. It's a leap in technology for Domino's, and a brilliant campaign by WorkInProgress.
Pinpoint Delivery - Piedivers - Domino’s Pizza Commercial
""Domino’s has a long history of innovating within the delivery space, dating back to 1960 – from pioneering pizza delivery to launching the industry-first Domino’s Tracker®. And now customers can get pizza delivered by dropping a pin without even needing an address.
This is another example of Domino's taking action and then creating advertising around that action. The ability to drop a pin and get pizza delivered without needing an address is a first-ever in the QSR space. And the advertising memorably introduces this new technology to the world, making Domino's top of mind."
Matt Talbot - Partner & Chief Creative Officer, WorkInProgress
Best Animation
In Chinese culture, the Lunar New Year is one of the most celebrated holidays. It's rich in tradition and legend, and we loved how this story was told through the eyes of a child, where holidays tend feel the most magical. While this film was one in a series that Kingdom of Something produced for Panda Express, what stood out for our judges was the mixed-media approach that was taken to illustrate both the real world and the imaginary, as seen through the eyes of this little girl.
Agency: Kingdom of Something
Client: Panda Express
Project: Lunar New Year
Panda Express, one of the largest Chinese American restaurant chains in the US, asked KoS to help to celebrate the Lunar New Year with this set of films telling the stories of the Chinese Zodiac and the Lunar New Year. In their biggest challenge yet, they combined Motion Graphics, Hand Drawn, and 3D animation to create a colorful, enticing world that invoked Panda throughout every frame for children across the world to learn about the Lunar New Year.
"The main goal of these films was to tell the story of a culture, so to us it was very important to get that right. We spent most of the beginning of the project writing and re-writing the story and storyboards until we were happy with it."
Maxwell Reed, Co-Founder & Creative Director - Kingdom of Something
Best Campaign
Spring is at its best when it connects brands to culture. Not only does this campaign help Toyota reach an urban audience by using Spring's connections with renowned fashion designers, they created an entirely virtual world. Our judges know of Spring Studios for its high-end photo and film content. What this campaign demonstrated for us was that they are also masters in the art of digital storytelling.
Spring was appointed to guide Toyota into the world of fashion for its first collaboration with cult UNDERCOVER streetwear designer Jun Takahashi. The result was an immersive digital world “Paris TOKYO” using CGI, VR and new media techniques and the casting of a diverse community of tastemakers and creative collaborators.
"To reach new fashion audiences, our approach was to subvert traditional car advertising and create a campaign that blended style, culture and technology."
- Spring Studios
Best Virtual Event
Throwing an engaging virtual event is challenging for any brand. There are so many production considerations, that the success truly hinges upon the skill and coordination of the team. BeCore are masters at event execution so XBOX was in good hands. KSV's judges selected this work for its interactivity (with a live quiz-show) photorealism (with a gorgeous 3D set) and for record-breaking fan engagement.
Xbox FanFest is all about rewarding fans and connecting them with the global Xbox community through a combination of in-person and virtual events, exclusive access, content and sweepstakes. For 2022, the brand set out to “level up” its virtual event efforts by putting fans front and center “where they belong.”
Inspired by trivia nights hosted at local bars and pubs that consumers love, the team created its own game show called Xbox FanFest Trivia, a live broadcast that gave gamers the chance to put their fandom to the test. The experience was hosted on Twitch, where fans could chat with one another, participate in polls and post shoutouts. Xbox global product marketer and streamer/host Kelly Lombardi and Xbox community manager Malik Prince served as hosts of the competition.
More than 7,000 FanFest members signed up to play before the game, and viewership was up 1,412 percent from 2021 and across 52 countries (despite not utilizing any paid media).
"This recognition would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of our talented team and the trust and collaboration of Xbox on their campaign, Xbox FanFest Trivia."
- BeCore
Best Augmented Reality
Red Bull Rampage on the RedBull TV app was already viewed by millions. With the addition of an augmented reality-based 3D mountain, the experience was extended in a way that gave at-home viewers the chance to experience the course through the rider's perspective. What our judges loved about this work is that it's a great example of how to extend a traditional content experience into augmented reality.
Shape Immersive partnered with XR Media Group, a pioneer in developing award-winning XR experiences to develop an advanced Augmented Reality app for Red Bull Rampage, a world renowned free-ride mountain biking competition. Fans can see a photogrammetry model of the mountain biking course in detail, select riders and follow the paths they took, and view the live broadcast during the event from the virtual billboard.
"The Rampage AR app was seamlessly integrated with the Red Bull TV app, garnering over 100,000 downloads on its launch day. This achievement earned the experience the 41st Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Digital Innovation, a testament to the collaborative synergy among our team of AR experts, the exceptional Red Bull Rampage team, and our valued partner, XRMG."
- - Alex Chuang, Co-founder, Shape Immersive
Best Loyalty
TYB's innovative platform incentivizes consumers for taking desired activities, such as completing polls and challenges. While there are certainly other platforms that can boast the same strategy, KSV selected TYB for their focus on creating highly engaged brand communities. The approach is paying off, as brands are seeing significant boosts in engagement and loyalty. TYB reports that "Skinsiders" in The Outset brand community have a 25% higher LTV. Our judges are huge ScarJo fans, but that didn't weigh-in to our decision-making. ;)
While having a superstar founder like Scarlett Johansson brought immense attention to the brand on social media, The Outset lacked the tools to harness this fandom toward sales growth. The Outset used TYB to implement a play-to-earn strategy that directed & channeled fan energy in an impactful way for sales.
The Outset was able to take ownership over their relationship with Scarlett Johansson's fandom & direct their enthusiasm into taking brand accretive actions, including cost-efficient, product-based UGC creation (versus paid ads) and qualitative research to incentivize repeat purchases.
"“If we can get customers to make repeat purchases and tell their friends, that’s where the real lifetime value is.”
Scarlett Johansson, Co-Founder of The Outset."
Best Social Commerce
With the rise of social commerce as an important revenue channel, KSV has been monitoring platforms in this space very closely. Superfiliate is a stand-out winner in this space by creating a scalable platform with seamless checkout experiences. What our judges loved was Superfiliate's ability to create, at-scale, storefronts that are curated by each influencer while maintaining brand integrity.
Florence By Mills made Superfiliate's ambassador platform its number one revenue channel.
2,000+ ambassador storefronts
18% Monthly Revenue
22x ROI
"”Superfiliate helped us accelerate our customers and creators as an acquisition channel, and the ability to manage multiple programs in one app makes our lives much easier. Our customers love their personalized storefronts, and the team has always been helpful and responsive!”
Chelsea Petroe, Ecommerce Manager at Florence by Mills
Best Use of Generative AI
Generative AI provides brands with the ability to produce custom content and interactivity with consumers. While the applications are broad among KSV's startups, our judges selected Instreamatic for offering the most robust and turn-key solution for brands with platform, which combines personalized media creation at scale, while also connected to platform of media providers to make executing a breeze.
KSV selected their service as being the best in the world at delivering personalized audio and video ad creative, at scale. KSV's judges selected Instreamatic because they provide marketers with a single platform for not only creating thousands of variations of advertising, but they combine the ability distribute and optimize as well - all from a single platform.
Furthermore, Instreamatic's a pioneer in conversational AI, which turns advertising into a two-way conversation between brands and consumers. Our judges are excited to see more examples of conversational AI from Instreamatic in the future!
"Conversing with a brand via voice ads is a lean-in experience that customers enjoy, leading to higher brand recall rates and a better relationship between brand and customer.”
Stas Tushinskiy, CEO at Instreamatic
Best Sales Enablement
Uptok's 1:1 Virtual Selling Solution transformed Evergreen's B2B strategy. A leader in distributing flags, home, and garden items, Evergreen harnessed Uptok's technology to merge digital efficiency with the personal touch of sales expertise. This integration led to an impressive $360/min incremental revenue generated and a 340% rise in AOV. Not only did Uptok streamline the buying process, making it more accessible, but its technology also played a crucial role in supporting Evergreen's unmanaged accounts, ensuring all clients receive instant, high-quality support.
With a mission to re-humanize commerce, Uptok enables 1-on-1 video consultations with the highest value customers across your digital touch points. Our intelligent algorithms ensure maximum face-time thereby creating the highest possible return-on-video and a superior customer experience with co-browsing and micro-interactions, generative AI cue cards unlike any video meeting tools.
""We value Evergreen’s stance on customer experience because they not only understand how important it is to develop a human-first relationship but also they are willing to make the resource commitment to enable it. It pays off tremendously when it comes to the bottomline business performance indicators."
Kashif Zaman - CEO, Uptok
Best E-Commerce
Lucky is a platform powering omni-channel fulfillment between e-commerce brands and retailers. Brands use their platform to sell on their own website with an option to buy from a local retailer, providing previously unavailable attribution data. KSV selected this work on the grounds of how their platform enables online to offline purchases, and provides e-commerce brands with a chance to gain first-party data while gaining attribution data.
Lucky partnered with Sephora to help beauty brands scale their retail and eCom sales using official data. Brands use Lucky to fulfill same-day orders, capture attribution data, optimize wholesale strategy, and more.
"Our software integrates with Sephora’s inventory systems and your eCommerce store to shine light onto how your online customers are shopping in-store.”
Sneh Parmar - Co-Founder & CEO, Lucky Labs
Silver Shield Award
Congratulations to our startup and agency partners who achieved a Silver Shield Award for exhibiting outstanding work in creativity, effectiveness, and technology innovation.
BRANDING
Elvis &
Studio Herrström
LOYALTY
ApeWater &
Alphaa.io
CAMPAIGN
AVEDA &
The Charles Group
SALES ENABLEMENT
M!STERS &
Bakstage
AUGMENTED REALITY
Blizzard Entertainment &
Form&Fun
BRANDING & WEBSITE
Andreessen Horowitz &
NEN Creative
Winners
Branding | Studio Herrström x Elvis
Brand Strategy & Identity: Studio Herrström - Elvis
Long live the king: Studio Herrström’s identity for Elvis pulls on his typographic history. Drawing on his extensive archive of outfits and imagery, the brand lets the music do the talking. KSV's judges wanted to award Studio Herrström not only for its masterful execution of the ELVIS identity, but also for their reputation for refreshing other music legends such as Whitney Houston.
Full coverage of this work is available on It's Nice That - read article | Studio Herrström at KSV.
Web3 Loyalty | Alphaa.io x ApeWater
Loyalty: alphaa.io + ApeWater
Alphaa.io is a fan engagement platform with web3 incentives that has been growing rapidly with emerging DTC brands, artists, museums, and more. Alphaa.io partnered with the canned water company Ape Water to create digital experiences for physical products. Their experiential art installation truck was parked in front of major events during Art Basel Miami. A QR code was scanned to mint a Banana NFT in real time and unlock utilities, stored in our custom wallet. Alphaa.io’s one-click claim converted over 25% users into Web3.
Complete case study available here.
Campaign | The Charles Group x AVEDA
Campaign: The Charles Group - AVEDA
KSV's judges appreciate successful, on-going client / agency partnerships, as they are tell-tale signs of creative and executional excellence. The Charles Group works with AVEDA across a variety of campaigns, from brand launches to social media content. Our runner-up award goes to The Charles Group for continuing to make AVEDA, an iconic beauty brand feel fresh and current with the next generation.
"Our ongoing partnership with Aveda covers product launches and brand campaigns across their global social and digital channels." - The Charles Group
Read an expanded case study at The Charles Group's website.
Sales Enablement | Bakstage x M!STERS
Sales Enabelement: Bakstage AI x M!STERS
Bakstage.AI transforms any website within minutes into a dynamic hub of real-time engagement, community building, customer education, and data-driven insights by seamlessly blending video, AI, and personalized human interactions. What KSV's judges appreciated about Bakstage beyond its video chat platform, is that it also integrated recorded video such as audio podcasts. It's a terrific bridge between a brand's owned content from livestreams and virtual events and its ecommerce presence.
Visit the Bakstage at KSV for more.
Augmented Reality | Form&Fun + Blizzard Entertainment
AR: Form&Fun - World of Warcraft | Blizzard Entertainment
To celebrate the launch of a new World of Warcraft expansion called Dragonflight, Form&Fun created an AR experience with 4 different dragons. Enthusiasts can flex their dragon around the world, give commands and take selfies with them. Snap lenses were also created for this experience, allowing anyone to become their favorite Dracthyr.
Visit the Form&Fun profile for more.
Branding & Website | NEN Creative x Andreessen Horowitz for TechWeek
Website: NEN Creative x Andreessen Horowitz "TechWeek"
NEN Creative has built a reputation of working with the world's foremost venture capital firms to act as both a brand strategy and growth agency for portfolio brands. TechWeek is one of the largest startup events each year, hosted in cities around the US. Our judges awarded NEN Creative and Andreessen Horowitz for creating an iconic and enduring brand platform to house this rapidly-growing and evergreen conference.
NEN Creative has built a reputation of working with the world's foremost venture capital firms to act as both a brand strategy and growth agency for portfolio brands. TechWeek is one of the largest startup events each year, hosted in cities around the US. Our judges awarded NEN Creative and Andreessen Horowitz for creating an iconic and enduring brand platform to house this rapidly-growing and evergreen conference.
Purple Shield Award
KSV's judges came across work that didn't quite fit the mold for this year's categories, and provided honorable mention for work that was equally impressive to those exhibited above. Congratulations to the agencies and startups that were awarded our "Purple Shield" for outstanding work!
ADVERTISING
SegaSammy & Craftsman+
SPONSORSIP
Amazon Music & ClashTV
CONVERSION
Kindred For Business & Earthmark
INSIGHTS
Revlon &
Vyrill
EFFECTIVENES
NCM Insurance & Tomi.AI
MEDIA PREDICTION
Warner Music & Prescient AI
Winners
Interactive Advertising | Craftsman+ x SEGASammy
Playable advertising by Craftsman+ x SegaSammy
Craftsman+ is part agency and platform. They create playable mini-games for brands as ad-units, which have proven to be highly effective at generating engagement, click-thru, and conversions for major brands. KSV's judges selected Craftsman+ for an honorable mention due to the success that their clients such as SegaSammy have ad after implementing campaigns using playable ad formats.
Learn more about Craftsman+ at KSV.
Sponsorship Activation | ClashTV x Amazon Music x And1
Sports Sponsorship Activation ClashTV x AmazonMusic x And1
ClashTV is a rapidly-growing platform that connects brands to local culture through sports. Between June and August last Summer, they livestreamed over 600 basketball games making their platform the #1 destination for Summer sports. KSV's judges selected their platform and sponsorship with AmazonMusic and And1 because of the unparalleled access that ClashTV provided both brands to the local streetball communities.
Full coverage of this work is available here.
Online Conversion | Earthmark x Kindred for Business
Environmental Scoring by Earthmark x Kindred for Business
Earthmark assesses a brand's environmental impact and provides a scoring system that brands can use to help communicate their environmental footprint to consumers. This has proven to be a powerful new tool for convincing an environmentally-focused consumer to make a purchase. KSV's judges selected this work on the grounds of its ROI, with Earthmark reporting 21% higher conversions and a 51% higher purchase rate among brands that have adopted their score. Read more about how they've achieved these results with Kindred for Busines at the link below.
Full coverage of this work is available here.
Shopper Insights | Vyrill x Revlon
Video UGC Testimonials by Vyrill x Revlon
Vyrill is a revolutionary new platform that uses AI to scan "trillions of videos" online to identify those that feature a client's brand. They profile these videos by a variety of attributes, and provide brands with valuable insights into who is talking about their brands and products online. This video content creates valuable testimonial footage that a brand can make accessible on a search bar that sits on a brand's e-commerce site. These UGC testimonials adn explainer videos are incredibly effective as a conversion tool, demonstrating sizable sales lifts when implemented for brands such as Revlon, Porsche, Sargento, Bed Head, and more.
Learn more about Vyrill at KSV.
Media Effectiveness | Tomi.AI + NSM Insurance
Campaign performance improvement through AI-based Predictive Conversions. Tomi.ai + NSM Insurance
Tomi.ai offers brands and agencies a platform for optimizing their digital acquisition campaigns with done-for-you advanced machine learning. KSV’s judges selected Tomi.ai for an honorable mentions for their platform’s ability to deliver proven and directly measurable reductions in CAC, incremental gains in high-value customer acquisition, and for providing B2B and B2C brands with advanced lead scoring and A/B testing capabilities.
Results: 2x sales from Google together with 47% increase in ROAS (insurance premiums originated over media spend)
Learn more about Tomi.Ai on KSV
Media Prediction | Prescient AI + Warner Recorded Music
Media prediction and optimization - Prescient AI + Warner Recorded Music
Tomi.AI offers brands a platform for optimzing their digital media targeting using advanced machine learning. KSV's judges selected Tomi.AI for an honorable mention for their platform's ability to deliver proven reductions in CAAC, deliver higher quality leads with lift LTV, and provide B2B brands with better leads using AI for advanced lead scoring.
“Prescient explains the vast amount of variables that impact the performance of album and track releases which helps our marketers trust the measurement of their talents. So when forecasting streams for global track releases at 95% became the norm, I was sold.”
— Scott Cohen, Chief Innovation Officer, Warner Recorded Music
Learn more about Prescient AI on KSV.
