This year’s ADwards creative excellence festival jury was particularly severe. Just six works in three categories received the highest recognition in the form an Order of the First Degree. Out of more than 200 works submitted across 15 categories, only 30 made it into the ADwards final.

Running backwards into a position among them was DDB’s creation Raitis Reverss – the guy who launched the Association for Running Backwards and ran 5 km in reverse at the Nordea Rīga Marathon. It should be noted that at last year’s Golden Hammer Festival, Raitis Reverss was the only candidate from Latvia to be shortlisted in the viral video category. We congratulate our friends at NECom on their achievement - one of the works they submitted: the O! Karte Night Run also made it to the final!

As the Chairman of the ADwards Jury, Simon Higby, DDB Stockholm Creative Director and author of the Fun Theory idea acknowledged, there is a distinctly Latvian style that can be seen in the works selected by the jury. The strength and characteristic traits of Latvians are concealed within a fresh style postulating freedom and clean design language. Simon believes that this is what we Latvians should highlight and export globally.

The winning works can be viewed here. And works submitted by DDB can be seen here. 

There’s only one conclusion – we have to create even more extraordinary works that can achieve outstanding results!