이미지: X — 미디어·생성AI
Summary
- Runway has revealed the 15 winning entries from the second season of its "Another Big Ad Contest for Products That Don't Exist"
- The grand prize went to Ciro Kavouras's "This is not Norway," with 2nd through 5th place awarded to different creators
- The contest challenges participants to use AI video generation tools to create ads for products that don't actually exist
- 공모전명
- Another Big Ad Contest for Products That Don't Exist (volume II)
- 주최
- Runway
- 발표일
- 2026년 8월 14일
- 선정 규모
- 수천 편 응모 중 15편 최종 선정
- 대상작
- This is not Norway — Ciro Kavouras
What happened
On August 14, Runway unveiled the winners of the second season of its contest, "Another Big Ad Contest for Products That Don't Exist." Thousands of entries poured in across every genre, brief, and format, with 15 ultimately selected as winners. The top five, in order, were: grand prize winner "This is not Norway" by Ciro Kavouras, followed by "Don't Question It" by @simonmeyer_, "Mora Mora" by Herinarivo Rakotomanana, "Solace x Vlad" by @laszlogaal_, and "Eau de Paw" by XAZINGA. Runway shared videos of the top five entries in an X post, along with a link to view the full list of winners.
What this means
The contest's core rule is simple: use AI video generation tools to create an ad for a product that doesn't actually exist. By borrowing familiar advertising conventions from perfume, automobiles, and household goods — while the product itself remains entirely fictional — creators are given even more room to imagine freely. As was evident at Runway's AIF 2026 screening held at Seoul's film center in early August, the real competitive edge in AI video generation has shifted away from technical demonstrations of realistic character rendering and toward narrative instinct — the judgment of what to keep and what to cut in the edit. This ad contest reflects the same trend. Within the constraints of a short 15-second-to-one-minute ad format, the ability to build a world, plant humor and twists, and nail a brand's tone has become the standard by which winners are judged. These 15 entries once again demonstrate that individual creators or small teams can produce polished video campaigns without a large advertising agency behind them.
What changes from here
Runway's decision to run this contest as an ongoing seasonal series reads less like a one-off event and more like a sustained effort to keep showcasing the range of video its tools can produce. It's also notable that the top five, from the grand prize winner on down, include creators from a diverse mix of nationalities and backgrounds. There's no word yet on when the next season will launch, but based on the pattern so far, Runway appears to be pursuing a strategy of continuously engaging the AI video creator community while steadily building up use cases for its models in the brand advertising space.
