Another Big Ad Contest for Products That Don't Exist — Volume II

Runway published the winners of the second Big Ad Contest, fifteen spots picked from thousands of entries. Seven fictional briefs and a month to make a 15-to-30-second spot entirely inside Runway. First place paid $50,000. Ciro Kavouras won with "This is not Norway."

The spec ad is a shrewd format for this moment: the shortest professional unit in film, and exactly the work AI video is closest to taking over commercially. It's less a showcase than an audition reel aimed at agencies. Runway's third open-call prize of 2026, after Volume I and the Big Pitch Contest in May, the annual festival cadence AIFF established has become something closer to a standing bounty program.