NEW YORK, USA — The Telly Awards, the world’s largest honor for video and television content across all screens, announced this year’s winners, including a variety of top-tier brands and organizations as well as smaller media companies. This year’s edition received over 11,000 entries.
Founded in 1979 to honor commercials made for cable and local TV, The Telly Awards has continually refreshed its categories to honor the evolving, broad range of work being made — including branded content, social video, and animation — working with industry experts to identify categories where new platforms play an increasingly important role in how stories are being told.
“The workforce has changed so much. New companies have come out of this time, others have shifted their offerings and employees are also looking for new ways of working — and video is being utilized more than ever to address these shifts,” said Tellys Executive Director Sabrina Dridje.
Among the winners in the new categories, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Microsoft and The Walt Disney Company, Europe & Africa, won big in Workplace Culture. Johns Hopkins Medicine’s “When The Dust Settles” stars RN Nurse Manager Robin Lewis-Cherry, MSN, as she performs spoken word poetry honoring her colleagues’ courage, commitment, sacrifices and resilience during the pandemic. In Hybrid Events, Left Field Labs and ViacomCBS Consumer Products took home the top honors, the latter for “ViacomCBS Consumer Products Virtual Partner Summit,” a recap of their virtual partner presentation utilizing UNREAL Engine to create a virtual stage for presenting updates on their shows. PBS, CTRL5, The Department of Veterans Affairs, American Documentary Inc, Setter Studios and Grounded brought home the gold in Sustainability, which highlights the many ways video and television are being used to center stories around environmental issues — a powerful way to disseminate critical information about the current and future state of the planet.
Meanwhile, in Education & Training and Recruitment, two key areas where video is becoming increasingly used to attract, educate and retain top talent, winners for the former category included work from the likes of Accenture Productions, PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs and the American Theatre Wing, while Stanford University and Johns Hopkins Medicine took home the top honors in Recruitment.
The Telly Awards also announced Al Jazeera Media Network as Telly Company of the Year for the second year in a row. With work including “Al Jazeera Investigations – All the Prime Minister’s Men” to “Holding on to Ukraine” and “Life in Syria” told through the eyes of displaced children, the Telly top honors reflects how influential the media company is with their powerful, unique form of reporting and storytelling. Al Jazeera Media Network’s work this season continues to embody what it means to create compelling, gold standard video journalism.
Finally, it was another standout year for the “People’s Telly Awards”, which are given to the most-loved pieces chosen by The Telly Awards’ audience. Winners include Al Jazeera: “Al Jazeera Investigations – All the Prime Minister’s Men”, the National Parks Conservation Association’s “One Park. One Story. Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park,” and Operation Smile: “A Window to the World: The Anthony L. & Hideko S. Burgess Interactive Learning Center.”
To further reinforce its commitment to produce and share stories that highlight its diverse community, the Telly Awards launched new endeavors including The Telly Award Podcast, which brought together industry experts like Felicia Pride, writer and producer of ABC’s hit show Grey’s Anatomy and Navid Khonsari, game writer and producer of household Rockstar games Grand Theft Auto and Max Payne, to share insights, debate their differences and find common ground in their forms of storytelling. The Tellys also reinstated the extremely popular Tellys live experiences, which featured work from the likes of The New York Times and The Atlantic.
Highlights from this year’s Telly Gold Award winners include:
Branded Content
- Freethink won for “Catalysts” in Campaign: Social Responsibility
- FORTUNE Brand Studio won for Salesforce and FORTUNE Brand Studio presents THE ECOPRENEURS “Ep1: SeaTrees” in Video/Cinematography
- Innocence Project won for “Happiest Moments” in Campaign: Not-for-profit
Non-Broadcast
- Mytonomy won for “Cochlear Implants” in Education & Training
- Sony Music Entertainment won for Janis Joplin “Me and Bobby McGree (Official Music Video)” in Use of Archival Footage
Commercials/Marketing
- Microsoft won for “Power On: The Story of Xbox” in Games
- Playstation won for “Star Wars” in Games
- Taxi Film Production won for Tourism & Events Queensland – “Days Like This” in Directing
Series/Shows/Segments
- Hearst Media Production Group won for “The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation” in Museums & Galleries
- The Walt Disney Company, Europe & Asia won for “Disney Jr. Xmas Multiproperty Spot” in Fully Animated Piece
- WETRANSFER won for Aline – “The French Dispatch” in Use of 2D Animation
Immersive & Mixed Reality
- Nice Shoes won for Audi: ”E-Tron Showroom” in Use of AR
Social Video
- PBS Digital Studios won for “Popular Words Invented by Authors” in Education & Training
- Sesame Workshop won for “Dia de Los Muertos/Day of the Dead Song” in Children
