How the ANDY's Binary Standard is Reshaping Global Creative Awards

Every year, advertising agencies submit their best work to a dozen major award shows. Most of those shows hand out bronze, silver, and gold trophies in categories so granular that mediocre work can find a podium somewhere. The ANDY Awards work differently.

At the ANDYs, work either earns an ANDY or it doesn't. No bronze consolation prizes. No silver participation ribbons. The jury sets the bar and controls how many winners exist. In a year when most shows are expanding categories to capture more entry fees, that binary philosophy makes the ANDY something closer to a genuine creative meritocracy.

This year's 2026 jury just announced its first round of winners, and the names shaping those decisions carry direct implications for marketers across Asia.

What the Jury is Actually Looking For

The ANDY Awards evaluate work through four lenses: Idea, Craft, Bravery, and RESET. Idea is non-negotiable. The other three are optional distinctions that entrants opt into, which means strong execution alone can't carry a weak concept.

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Jury chair Anselmo Ramos, who founded the agency GUT, applies a two-part personal test to every piece: "Show me something I haven't seen before. Show me something so hard to execute, I don't even know where to start." That standard explicitly penalizes work that throws money at production to compensate for a thin idea.

Yasuharu Sasaki, Dentsu's Global Chief Creative Officer and an ANDY juror this year, frames his creative philosophy around a different but complementary principle. He believes "the highest form of creativity is work that creates discontinuous change, work that shifts reality." In the AI era, he argues, "brands need to embody humanity more than ever." For Asian marketers relying on AI-generated content to scale their output, that's a pointed warning from one of the most credentialed creative leaders in the region.

BRAVERY and RESET: Two Categories Worth Watching

The Bravery distinction at the ANDYs rewards work that takes genuine creative risk. It's not just edgy for the sake of it. A BRAVERY ANDY opens a second door: winners become eligible for The Advertising Club of New York's Brave Brands Awards each October. That's a meaningful upside for teams whose clients are willing to push past safe, consensus-driven campaigns.

The RESET category rewards a different kind of boldness. It specifically recognizes ideas that "do not conform to traditional mediums." Recent RESET winners have leaned heavily toward tangible products and technology, including a student-created app designed to help domestic violence victims. That win, alongside the Best In Show Student Award going to BYU AdLab's "Animal Territory" campaign (earning the team a US$10,000 scholarship), signals that the jury rewards genuine conceptual strength regardless of whether the creator is a global holding company or a university lab.

For Asian creative teams, RESET is particularly worth noting. The category levels the playing field in a way that traditional film or print categories don't. An idea for a product or a piece of technology doesn't need a massive production budget. It needs a problem, a mechanism, and proof it works.

Where Asia Stands in the Global Creative Rankings

The 2026 jury includes two direct voices from Asia: Yasuharu Sasaki from Dentsu Japan and Raj Kamble, founder of Famous Innovations in India. Their presence matters, but it doesn't change the underlying structural challenge Asian work has faced at global shows.

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At Cannes Lions 2023, China received only four combined Lions, while Australia, New Zealand, and Japan led the APAC tally. Campaign Asia's analysis pointed not to a quality gap but to structural barriers: language, value frameworks calibrated to Western causes, and distribution reach. Cannes Lions 2026 has since committed to 49 Asian jurors, including five jury presidents, which is a record. But representation in the judging room doesn't automatically translate to wins.

The ANDY's binary model cuts differently. When there's no bronze category to shelter work that "kind of works," the question becomes whether an idea is genuinely original and executed at the highest level. That's where Dentsu Tokyo's sustained momentum is instructive. The Tokyo office has won ADFEST Agency of the Year four consecutive years and Dentsu claimed its seventh Network of the Year Lotus at ADFEST 2026. That track record isn't accidental. It reflects a sustained investment in idea-first creative culture rather than execution-heavy campaigns.

Spikes Asia 2026 adds another encouraging data point: independent agencies saw 44% growth in awards won, and brands entering the competition rose 18% year-on-year. The ecosystem is broadening beyond the major holding companies, which creates more entry points for smaller, more nimble Asian creative teams.

What This Means for Asian Marketing Leaders

The ANDY Awards are not a universal benchmark. Cannes Creative Effectiveness Lions, for comparison, weight results at 50% of the score, with the idea itself accounting for just 25%. That's a fundamentally different question being asked about the same piece of work. Understanding which show rewards what is basic strategic literacy before you spend on entries.

But if you're trying to understand what the world's most respected creative leaders currently consider excellent, the ANDY jury list is worth reading carefully. This year's 23 jurors span GUT, Dentsu, TBWA, Ogilvy Latam, Droga5, Edelman, VML, Marcel, and more. They are transparent about their standards. They judge live, with attendees in the room. And they have no incentive to award work that merely looks impressive on a screen.

Chaka Sobhani, TBWA's Global Chief Creative Officer and another 2026 juror, has judged Cannes, D&AD, the One Show, Clios, and the London International Awards. Her standard for work that "cuts through" is informed by that entire spectrum. The ANDYs just gave Asian creative leaders a rare public window into how minds like hers actually evaluate what wins.