2023 Awards

BBC Studios was victorious across physical formats in 2022, with an impressive volume share of 15% across over 770,000 units sold. With a number of releases such as the thirteenth season of Dr Who and the sixth and final series of the Birmingham based Peaky Blinders.

Paramount’s long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick saw explosive success in 2022 and took the top spot for title of the year with more than 305K units sold on physical and almost 1.5 million units sold on EST and TVOD. Top Gun: Maverick made over £83 million at the Box Office, becoming the longest reigning non-consecutive number one in the weekly Official Charts Company film chart history.

Sky Store is the worthy winner of this hard-fought category. The digital retailer continues to promote and lead the market on new release transactional content and support the biggest titles across the year. This year, Sky Store has demonstrated its support for the wider market by helping Disney to re-introduce its transactional window. This was a year of huge commercial success and promotional activity, including the first-of-its-kind countdown timers to build awareness and the launch of the best-in-class platform, Sky Glass. Sky Store continues to engage existing customers through strong promotional activity and brings in new customers too. Continuing to innovate and inspire leading with an always-on and ready-to-collaborate approach, Sky Store is a deserving winner this year.

hmv is the deserved winner tonight as it continues to champion physical formats and support the category. hmv invested heavily in super-serving the High Street and especially entertainment fandoms. This year, the retailer delivered its highest volume of steelbooks in the past 10 years offering customers “only@hmv” exclusives on 3 out of 4 of the biggest market releases in 2022. Their strengths lie in their commitment to growth – through refitting and opening new stores – continuing partnerships for and with the category and giving consumers choice and range at a local and regional level. The retailer provides shoppers with much-wanted browsing space and time, serving physical fans across all formats, from great value DVDs to the strong promotion of premium exclusives, 4K UHD and of course, merchandise.

Silk Factory has an impressive, proactive focus on culture, inclusivity and ensuring their staff are at the front and centre of everything they do. The agency is making real headway with diversity by actively seeking out talent from a diverse range of backgrounds while creating opportunities for all socio-economic backgrounds by offering paid internships and trainee schemes. The team are exceptional at what they do in the AV specialism sphere and really do go above and beyond for their clients, which was expertly demonstrated through testimonials and award nominations and wins. The judges were also impressed by Silk Factory’s future-facing plans, including their environmental and social impact goals.

OC were commended on their incredibly strong client relationships, the quality of their account management and their excellent creative work. The judges noted OC’s inclusive culture and empowered staff; they were particularly impressed by their focus and clarity that it is their team that makes OC the highly capable and well-respected agency they are known to be.

The Warner Bros. Discovery and Apple TV collaboration on the campaign for The World of Batman was exceptionally executed, successfully opening up the world of film franchises and bringing the audience in. The judges felt that the overall campaign was a unique home entertainment solution, one which promoted the new release film at the same time as some of the classic catalogue movies. Overall the collaboration delivered a high-end, user-friendly and story-driven campaign that brought in both new and existing fans, with the user journey front of mind. An exceptional example of engaging new and current audiences alike.

Following the success of Hidden Gem in 2022, we have launched a second People’s Choice award – the BASE & hmv Fan Choice Award. The winner of the inaugural year is Netflix, with Stranger Things Season 4 as Max Escapes Vecna! As voted by the industry, Stranger Things was deemed the standout in this category and noted as the biggest, most talked about moment in Home Entertainment this year.

Studiocanal took on the massive challenge of reinventing a vintage classic, The Queen of Spades (1949), on a minimal budget but really brought it to life. Using the bonus features to dive head-first into the backstory and giving something fresh to existing and new fans simultaneously, led to this entry’s success. Having acclaimed director Martin Scorsese record an exclusive intro was an inspired choice and delving into international film archives for never-before-seen footage took a lot of hard work to pull off which the judges were very impressed by.

For this campaign, the BFI took the time to explore insights and put real thought into what fans wanted from a new definitive version of this iconic movie. The BFI team retrieved and gained sign-off on a wide range of exclusive archived video content and commissioned new essays packaged together in an 80-page booklet. A well thought-out and considered selection of bonus features which were highly commended by the judges

The judges were very impressed with Looper Insights’ industry-first digital shelf tracking solution. By tracking the Merchandising Placement Value (MPV) partners can compare the exposure of their titles across multiple Apps versus their competitors and help them make informed decisions and improve their marketing strategy. It is a fresh and unique solution that makes something previously hard to measure into something actionable, with data that can be implemented and used immediately. Ultimately, this is what the industry and marketing departments have been asking for, for the past decade, making it strong, relevant and incredibly useful for the industry

The judges simply could not fault the final product for Curzon’s Three Colours Trilogy. The packaging and artwork were not only beautiful but classy with a lot of thought given to its creation. There was a bold and brave approach to the creative development with original ideas flowing throughout, ensuring the final product was “bookshelf worthy” and highly collectable. The choice to partner with artists and incorporate social-led trends into the packaging was innovative and smart, with clever use of illustrations. Combining strong partnerships, fresh interviews and the creation of short films for the fans, the Curzon team ensured this was a standout collector’s item, an unmissable collection for fans.

This joint collaboration between Spark, Warner Bros. Discovery & Universal Pictures impressed the judging panel. They felt this first wave of The Film Vault showed an indelible passion for film through its artwork; the rationale and strategy was well thought-out and it was abundantly clear that hundreds of hours of research went into the design and packaging. The results speak for themselves, with new and unique offerings for a number of classic films. The judges felt that The Film Vault is well placed for future iterations and its movies are likely to become highly collectable items.

There is a real challenge in making a 50-year-old film relevant today, but the social and PR campaign for Pink Flamingos, led by DnA PR, The Criterion Collection & Sony Pictures, did just that. The judges felt there was a uniqueness to this campaign with a genuine connection to the audience with the Little White Lies takeover a perfect choice for the release, resulting in over 30 pieces of media coverage. The targeting across publications, partnerships and audiences, visually stunning creatives and exclusive content, made this campaign feel timely, relevant, and fresh. The judges noted in particular the level of detail, thought and strategy put into the campaign by the teams, leading to strong results and making this campaign a worthy winner.

The PR and social campaign for Where the Crawdads Sing was strong and over-performed on a small budget, delivering an influencer-led “big night in” on TikTok, a press trip to the Elmley Nature Reserve with the Metro’s travel blogger, and a targeted PR campaign. Despite challenges such as the short release window, the team were able to pivot quickly and bring everything together at speed. There was a clever tie-in with the book which was played up to the max, making a close connection with fans of the book. The judges also noted that the team navigated crisis PR well during this campaign.

The video assets produced for The Devil’s Hour were masterful in their targeting. The various trailers and teasers were designed to target different audiences with tonally different storylines, tailoring each for specific and well-defined audiences. They were produced to high quality and created to ensure lasting impact. The excellent results across YouTube show that these assets were successful in not only converting new audiences to the show but to the horror genre itself.

Despite limited access to the lead star, Aubrey Plaza, Universal Pictures & Chinagraph managed to produce a fun and unique video asset to support the UK Home Entertainment release. The campaign was well-researched and thought through and the team created the perfect creative vehicle to show off the show’s star while the dissemination of the final asset clip resulted in strong engagement across Aubrey’s social channels and across the NME website.

This exceptional partnership between Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Discovery marks the first time that these two powerhouse studios have united in this way. The judges were incredibly impressed by the cross-studio collaboration, the exceptional teamwork and strategy, and the agile responses to challenges during delivery and the overall excellent results. The bonus features and packaging were incredibly well received by fans, cementing it as a stand-out in the market. Overall, this was an impressive undertaking, with unique execution that required a high level of collaboration to bring in the results that it did, a deserving winner of Campaign of the Year for Catalogue.

The 4K Special Edition of Ex Machina surprised and delighted fans with a beautiful fresh creative design across both the standard 4K release and the striking Steelbook edition. The release strategy faced a number of challenges but the Universal Pictures team managed an impressive feat, working collaboratively with their European counterparts with great results including selling out all units by the end of the first week with no PR or media budget.

The campaign for Lionesses: How Football Came Home saw several obstacles and challenges – including an incredibly tight turnaround time for all aspects of the release – that were excellently and strategically overcome.  The judges felt it was close to a miracle to be able to pull this release together across the different departments, teams and agencies. An undeniable amount of thought, problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration was on show across the entire release strategy, with everyone coming together in a short amount of time to make it happen, a truly impressive feat, and one that should be celebrated.

The campaign for Emily the Criminal impressed the judges and was particularly strategic in its use of PR and heroing main star, Aubrey Plaza. With limited access to talent, the use of assets and creative content was noted by the judges as well-researched and phenomenally well-targeted. The lack of theatrical release in the UK was a significant challenge, however, the team made a real effort to overcome this and other obstacles they overcame. The impressive results demonstrate how well-executed and strategic their efforts were.

The Terrifier 2 campaign was an incredibly strategic and audience-driven campaign that delivered something dynamic, fresh, unique and innovative. The team really leaned into the audience in all aspects, nailing their targeting by integrating learnings from a very successful first release. The campaign’s strength was mirrored in the impressive results, pulling on the success of the first release while still trying to convert new fans to a franchise still in its infancy.

Universal Pictures’ campaign for M3GAN was a standout winner in the up to £15m box office category. There was a clear and well-executed strategy across media-tailored creative by audience and genre, and expert targeting that contributed to an excellent overall campaign. The team used data intelligently, along with playful creatives to target specific audiences and aid conversion. Reaching such a wide audience for brand-new IP is an impressive feat, and playing to Gen Z was a really strong choice and paid off well.

Sony Pictures’ campaign for 65 was both effective and efficient. The positioning of the media, PR and social strategies was robust, resulting in strong commercial performance across both digital and physical. The breadth of activity, along with neatly executed social media plans and a clear understanding of the audience all contributed to the judges’ highly commending this entry.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s cross divisional teams worked together to deliver a comprehensive campaign that fused traditional tactics and digital innovation to yield excellent results. Following impressive theatrical returns, the team had a significant challenge to convert on transactional but by focusing on a data driven media campaign and comprehensive partnerships, they were able to target superfans but also convert casual fans too. Warner’s unique release strategy across PVOD, EST and physical focusing on purchase urgency and repeat viewership really impressed the judges. This included targeted social media to capitalise on fandom and optimising the reach of distribution channels including digital out-of-home advertisements placed in proximity to physical stores in the week leading up to Father’s Day. The judges believed the retail partnerships on this release were truly best-in-class and with excellent results, The Batman is a worthy winner.

Universal’s campaign for Jurassic World Dominion was a wide-ranging and strong marketing campaign with a clear and concise understanding of their target audience. The media campaign was really broad including innovative social assets to target existing core fans and those new to the franchise. A key highlight was the eye-catching Out-of-Home adverts via large scale outdoor media such as train stations and during a high-profile football match. The sku strategy was well thought-out with strong creative, an extended cut and a gift with purchase edition. Leveraging strong retailer partnerships was a key element of the campaign and with challenges around the release date, the team showed great agility and delivered a strong campaign with impressive results.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck overcame the challenge of not being a well-known title with a great plan, incredible execution of a multi-layer approach over a number of environments and a lot of hard work. The judges noted the key aspect that led this campaign to win was its level of thought and execution, using its budget to the maximum, nailing the media placements and having a strong, fresh and innovative creative.

The judges noted that one of the most impressive parts of the campaign for Lionesses was the short production timeline making it a real challenge to overcome. The team at Altitude took on a daunting prospect but demonstrated incredible teamwork to pull the final piece together in time. Building on experience rather than starting from scratch was a real success for the team and resulted in a smart release strategy that was perfect for its intended audience.

The campaign for Chucky: Season 1 had a clear challenge to convert the original film franchise lovers to the new TV series. As a result of an extensive and calculated strategy, the team created a unique offering for fans with a Steelbook release and a ‘Good Guys’ edition. The judges felt this was a really strong, visually stunning campaign from start to finish. They were particularly impressed by the Universal team’s tenacity, negotiation skills and willingness to adapt and learn, with a similar approach already in place for Season 2.

Sony’s commercial initiative on SVOD & Transactional Optimisation answers the everyday important questions that helps understanding on windowing and the impact of SVOD. The initiative was strategy-led, impactful, methodical and widely beneficial for the industry. The entry stood out in terms of its impact, its ability to overcome challenges – such as the difficulty of attaining data and working across stakeholders with competing internal objectives – and its articulation of data.

Next Generation Transactional Data is a wide-spanning market analysis of transactional data and serves as a great solution for wider audiences to make important decisions on where to invest within the market. It was energetic, passionate and tenacious, addressing a long-standing challenge for multiple stakeholders. The results were innovative, commercial, relevant and a great achievement for Official Charts Company.

The judges agreed that launching a brand-new SVOD channel in the market was a bold and brave move and a great opportunity to fulfil a gap in the market for quality curated content. The project was a tremendous team effort with the launch especially well thought-out with a lot of energy behind it. The initiative was impactful despite limited resources and overall executed well with strong PR and retail partnerships and positive results.

Frontline’s initiative ‘Championing New Release in Retail’ used a huge amount of learnings from its team’s vast retail experience and showed tenacity to pull off a successful partnership with Tesco – reversing a previous decision from the company to withdraw from the physical category. The initiative served as a strong case study for delivering great eye-catching visual merchandising units to build awareness and deliver excellent in-store sales.

Bringing Wednesday to the Outernet was an impressive use of new and emerging technology to really speak to the fans. It was a brave and inspired choice to use this space given the challenge of living up to the cool and clever space but the team delivered a fresh, engaging and immersive experience. The overall campaign was original and fresh while demonstrating the understanding of the fan base, given the space and audio for the iconic viral Wednesday dance. The team embraced the challenges that arose, such as using a new space under a very tight timeframe, but ultimately created something beautiful, slick and incredibly well-considered.

Following the success of Hidden Gem in 2022, it has returned for 2023 alongside a second People’s Choice award. The winner of this year’s Hidden Gem is MUBI’s Aftersun! As voted by the industry, Aftersun was deemed the standout in this category as the title that captured the audience’s imagination and saw success beyond expectation.

Spitfire Over Berlin overcame several challenges to get from script to screen – a young and generally unknown filmmaker, a small budget and newly established partnerships. The budget was the first obstacle to overcome – adeptly navigated by honing in on  Kaleidoscope’s strong and established international partners for pre-sales. There were also numerous challenges throughout the film’s production journey, particularly being shot during the height of COVID with a skeleton crew. The brilliant teamwork on display at every turn, and nimble responses to bumps along the road enabled the film to go on to achieve domestic and global acclaim. With the final ROI for Spitfire Over Berlin at 211%, and domestic sales to date sitting at 244% of the production budget, there is no denying that this labour of love was one worth believing in, and a very worthy winner of the inaugural Script to Screen award.

The judges were thoroughly impressed by Dogwoof’s submission for Subject & the Human Impact of Documentary Filmmaking. The film seeks to shed light on the duty of care needed for the subjects of documentaries, a hugely relevant conversation for right now, considering the incredible popularity of documentary films and series across all screens and formats. The objectives of this initiative were clear and importantly will deliver a very clear benefit if met. Pushing to incorporate the learnings from this documentary into educational settings will have a real social impact as well as make a genuine difference to the wider film industry. A brilliant, bold and thought-provoking submission with an important issue to bring to light.