meet the jury
Guto Araki: founder, creative director at Biite
Guto Araki
Guto Araki is a creative director whose work has been recognized at every major advertising award show, including Cannes Lions, One Show, Clios, Effies, and more. He’s shaped culture at top agencies like TBWA\Chiat\Day, crafting campaigns for Adidas, Gatorade, and the Grammys, and at Media Arts Lab, where he worked on iPhone and iPad launch campaigns for Apple.
As Executive Creative Director at Deutsch LA, he led Taco Bell’s domestic and global work, delivering standout moments like Taco Moon and the Quesalupa launch, as well as other iconic campaigns for Tile, Snapple, and Nest. He then co-founded Big Family Table as Chief Creative, building Hulu’s Hulu Has Live Sports campaign that helped grow the platform from 10M to 30M users — surpassing the growth of all other U.S. streaming services.
Guto is also the founder of Biite, the Food Culture Agency, with clients like Taco Bell and Resy Amex. Biite was behind Live Más Live keynote that reshaped the strategy of the QSR industry, Taco Bell’s Super Bowl 2025 campaign featuring LeBron James and Doja Cat, and Resy’s Right This Way launch in 2025. Most recently, he founded Fellow Kids, the agency behind Roku’s Less Screaming, More Streaming—named the second-best campaign of 2024 by Tim Nudd—and FanDuel Sports Network’s MLB Opening Day debut.
Chad Broude: Co-Founder, Co-Chief Creative Officer at Highdive
Mark Gross: Co-Founder, Co-Chief Creative Officer at Highdive
CHAD BROUDE AND MARK Gross
Chad Broude is Co-Founder and Co-Chief Creative Officer at Highdive, dedicated to harnessing culture to create work that drives brands forward. Under his leadership, Highdive has earned accolades like Adweek’s Breakthrough Agency of the Year and secured the #1 spot on the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter four times in five years –an achievement matched by only two other agencies.
Before founding Highdive, Chad was a Creative Director at DDB Chicago, where he created State Farm’s iconic Discount Double Check campaign, which became a cultural phenomenon. He continues to push boundaries at Highdive, delivering award-winning, business-driving creativity for brands like Jeep, State Farm, BetMGM, Jersey Mike’s, and KFC. In 2023, he was named to Ad Age’s prestigious 40 Under 40 list. This year, Chad is serving as Chief Judge for the Radio Mercury Awards, further cementing his impact on the industry.
If Chad weren't writing ads, he’d be writing for TV shows.
Mark Gross is Co-Founder and Co-Chief Creative Officer at Highdive. Under his leadership, Highdive has been recognized as one of the industry's top agencies, earning a spot on the Ad Age A-List for the last two years, being named to Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies List, and Inc. 5000’s Fastest Growing Companies.
Before founding Highdive, Mark was EVP/Executive Creative Director at DDB Chicago, leading work for Bud Light, Mars Wrigley, Barilla, and Capital One. His most famous campaign – Bud Light’s “Real Men of Genius” – remains the most-awarded radio campaign in history.
Mark has judged and won top honors at every major industry show, including the Clio Awards, Cannes Lions, One Show, and D&AD. Named one of Business Insider’s Top 25 Most Creative People in Advertising and Adweek’s Creative 100, he currently serves on the Radio Mercury Awards Advisory Council and the Syracuse University Creative Council.
If Mark weren’t running Highdive, he’d own a dog daycare – because, aside from his family,he likes dogs better than people. If not that, he’d run a small coffee shop serving breakfast and killer sandwiches for lunch.
Perrin Anderson and Hobart Birmingham
Perrin Anderson and Hobart Birmingham, Group Creative Directors at RPA
Perrin Anderson and Hobart Birmingham are SVP Group Creative Directors at RPA. Over their long creative partnership there, they have done work for almost every client, launching and building several well-known brands. They’ve created award-winning campaigns for Honda and Acura, including Honda’s first social media brand campaign which led to its first million followers. They also created the long-running and iconic Farmers Insurance “We Know a Thing or Two” and Apartments.com “The Place to Find a Place” campaigns. Most recently, they led the launch of Homes.com, including this year’s two-spot ‘Homes.com is the best’ Super Bowl campaign featuring Dan Levy, Heidi Gardner and Morgan Freeman.
Raised in Idaho, Perrin now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son. He escapes back to the mountains by foot, bike or skis whenever possible. Before advertising, he had a brief career in landscape architecture and graduated from Duke University.
Hobart was born in Tokyo, raised in the Bay Area, and probably needs a haircut.
Jason Karley: Executive Creative Director at Artists Equity
Jason Karley
Jason is an Executive Creative Director at Artists Equity.
In 3rd grade art class, he started making commercial parody videos and it’s been all downhill from there.
Throughout his career, his work on brands like DIRECTV, The GRAMMYs, Bud and Bud Light, Nike, McDonalds, MTV, Taco Bell, and Cars.com has been both critically awarded at Cannes, D&AD, One Show and The Clios, and popular in culture.
His Bud Light “Swear Jar” commercial won the Emmy for Best Commercial and was one of YouTube’s first viral hits. His work has been featured on The Today Show, Good Morning America, TBS’s World Funniest Commercials and finished top ten in USA Today’s Super Bowl AdMeter.
Multiple past campaigns for The GRAMMYs received millions of organic views, unpaid celebrity retweets, and were written up everywhere from Rollingstone.com to USA Today, Fast Company and more.
His “Ronald McDonald Loves Taco Bell’s Breakfast” campaign launch had 2 billion impressions in 24 hours.
He has judged D&AD, AICP, and too many of his wife’s outfits to be good for him.
He is not ethically against resurrecting dead ads, despite knowing they will eventually turn on us and terrorize a small town, before being destroyed in the third act.
Ryan Lehr: Co-Chief Creative Officer at Deutsch
ryan LEHR
Ryan is an award-winning creative in the advertising and entertainment industries, currently serving as Co-Chief Creative Officer at Deutsch. In his 13 years at the agency, he’s helped shape iconic work for high-profile brands like Taco Bell, PetSmart, NerdWallet, Dr Pepper, Snapple, and Canada Dry. Ryan played a key role in helping Dr Pepper surpass Pepsi to become the #2 soda in the U.S.—a testament to the power of long-running platforms like “Fansville,” now entering its 8th season and recognized with honors including a Gold Effie and a Gold Sports Clio.
Prior to Deutsch, Ryan worked at TBWA\Chiat\Day and Omelet, crafting campaigns for brands like Pepsi, Tostitos, Visa, Microsoft, Marvel, Activision, and HBO. Outside of advertising, Ryan has written and sold TV pilots to Adult Swim and FOX.
All that said, Ryan has also not produced a boat-load of ads for all the clients mentioned above. And according to him, some of those unmade ads were really, really good too.
Felipe Ribeiro
Felipe Ribeiro: Chief Creative Officer at Wieden+Kennedy Portland
Felipe Ribeiro is the chief creative officer at Wieden+Kennedy Portland. Prior to joining the agency’s headquarters in 2023, Felipe was based out of the W+K São Paulo office where he worked as the chief creative officer for W+K’s LatAm region, leading offices in that area to exponential growth with clients that included Budweiser, Ford, Google, Pepsi, and Nike Argentina. During that time, Felipe was integral to the establishment of W+K's office in Mexico City as well as a hub in Buenos Aires - the first network outposts in Spanish-speaking countries. With over 16 years of experience in the advertising industry, Felipe has won numerous industry accolades, including a Grand Prix and a Titanium Lion at the Cannes Lions Festival for notable campaigns like "Bring Home the Bud" for Budweiser and the “DoorDash All The Ads” Super Bowl campaign for DoorDash. His portfolio also includes work for brands such as Nike, Google, Old Spice, Prime Video, and Sprite. Felipe is originally from Santos, a coastal city in Brazil, and grew up surrounded by canoeists and musicians and had 15 minutes of (very local) fame as a vocalist in a hardcore band. Thosedays are gone, but he continues to draw inspiration from music, writing, sports, and design to create work with a unique voice and a genuine chance of becoming part of the culture.
Jason Sperling: Chief Creative Officer at INNOCEAN
JASON SPERLING
Jason Sperling joined INNOCEAN in February 2023 as the Chief Creative Officer, and in a few short years has helped transform the global agency’s creative landscape by defining an agency vision that unifies the global network, elevating the quality of work across all channels for blue chip brands like Hyundai, Genesis and Kia, attracting and adding top-tier talent to a reinvented creative department and expanding INNOCEAN’s horizons beyond just automotive with new accounts like El Pollo Loco and Sea World.
Prior to this he served as Global Executive Creative Director for Meta Reality Labs, overseeing the global marketing for VR, AR and Metaverse. During his career he’s developed iconic work for brands like Apple, Honda, TikTok, Amazon, Disney Pixar and UNICEF Worldwide. His work has put him on several industry best lists, including Adweek’s Top 30 Creative Directors and Campaign’s 40 over 40 Best Digital Creatives.
Among his notable achievements, his Apple “Mac vs. PC” campaign was declared “Campaign of the Decade” by Adweek and listed as a Top 10 Campaign of the Century by AdAge. He received numerous Cannes Gold Lions for his work, as well as an Emmy nomimation for Honda’s short film, “Paper”. His work for Honda social media was dubbed “the most prolific in the auto industry” by Forbes, and several of his Super Bowl ads have appeared on all-time best lists. His work has made a difference too -- his Imaginary Friend Society animated film series (imaginaryfriendsociety.com), which explains the pediatric cancer experience to kids, has been translated into 13 languages and is being used in children’s hospitals globally.
Jason’s most recent book, Creative Directions: Making the Move from Talent to Leader (HarperCollins Leadership) provides creative people with the tools to become effective creative leaders. His first book, Look at Me When I’m Talking to You: Building Brand Attraction in an Age of Brand Aversion was released on Instagram (@lookatmebook) a page a day for 170 days to show what it takes to breakthrough in a challenging media environment.
But the truth is Jason would be nowhere without creating multiple spec ads early in his career for ideas that died. It was after ex-AdWeek critic Bob Garfield predicted that his spec ad for California Map and Travel would win at Cannes that he got his big break in advertising.
Milana Vayntrub: Director, Writer, Actor
Milana VAYNTRUB
Milana Vayntrub is a director, writer, and actor whose work blends sharp comedic timing with genuine heart — and often, a healthy dose of weird. Born in Uzbekistan and raised in the U.S., she’s created memorable campaigns for AT&T, Voya, CeraVe, and Cracker Barrel Cheese.
Milana began by making viral content for YouTube and CollegeHumor before gaining widespread recognition as Lily, the upbeat AT&T spokesperson featured in over 40 spots. A former refugee, Milana is a vocal advocate for immigrants’ rights. Her award-winning documentary Can’t Do Nothing helped spark a social media movement and raised hundreds of thousands for refugee aid.
Her latest short films — Pickled Herring (Audience Choice Award, Indy Shorts 2023) and Booties (Best Narrative Short: Comedy, Cinequest 2025; Best Rom-Com, HollyShorts 2025) — continue her mission to tell stories that are funny, heartfelt, and culturally resonant.
Jon Wolanske: Creative Director and Associate Parter at Goodby Silverstein & Partners
JON WOLANSKE
Long ago, Jon traded a life of improvisational comedy and audience suggestions for a life in advertising and client suggestions. At Goodby Silverstein & Partners, he rose from junior writer to Creative Director and Associate Partner, creating award-winning work for Cheetos, Doritos, Got Milk?, SONIC Drive-In, Xfinity/Comcast, Grandma’s Cookies, and many more great clients. He’s a teacher at The Academy @ GSP, has hosted 2 agency TV shows and several dozen agency meetings, and has a drawer full of much-loved dead ideas of his own (next to the napkins and soy sauce packets).
He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Margot, son, Cy, two cats, Squiggy and Shirley, and new dog, Benji. Someday he will learn to play piano.
Ashton Rose: Group Creative Director at 72andSunny
Ashton Rose
Ashton Rose is an award winning Group Creative Director at 72andSunny in LA, an AdAge A-List awarded agency for the last two consecutive years.
His rap sheet includes campaigns for the NFL, United Airlines, CeraVe, Activision, as well as a whole bunch of other great work that was thankfully not killed.
Before that he spent his time in NY at Co:Collective, BBDO, and countless other agencies. There he killed work, had work killed, and saw some of his work die a slow and painful death.
Ashton has been waiting for this moment his entire life.
Erika Madison: Head of Production at Anomaly
Erika Madison
Erika joined Anomaly in 2017 and built the production department at Anomaly LA from the ground up. Her role expanded in 2023 to Head of Production, Anomaly US, working across both the Los Angeles and New York offices. She has built a unified production capability for all different types of work with scale and craft that spans the coasts.
Erika has produced groundbreaking creative for the likes of HOKA, Buffalo Wild Wings, Expedia and more.
Prior to Anomaly, Erika spent nine years at Wieden+Kennedy Portland, where she produced award-winning work for many of W+K’s clients. Some of her more notable projects include the P&G Olympics “Thank You, Mom” campaign from 2012-2016; the Nike “Find Your Greatness” campaign, featuring "Jogger"; as well as work for Samsung, Coke, and Old Spice. Before her time at Wieden+Kennedy, Erika worked on the production side as a freelancer in Los Angeles, working her way through the production ranks before switching to an agency role.
Erika has participated as a category judge for AICP for many years, serving on the curatorial committee for two years.