Awards season just wrapped—the time of year when the industry stops to ask: What moved people? What will be remembered?

We're asking the same question — about CTV ads for app campaigns.

Most app marketers still treat CTV like traditional brand TV: broad, awareness-forward, and with no real plan for what happens after the ad ends. That approach made sense when CTV was a branding channel. It does not make sense now that CTV is fast-becoming a performance channel.

Streaming audiences are enormous, captive, and increasingly reachable with the kind of precision that used to belong only to mobile. And yet, most CTV ads built for app campaigns are still brand awareness-forward with no real bridge from the CTV screen to the 77% of people who use their phones while watching TV (Business of Apps).

But the brands that get it right? They deserve recognition.

So this year, we're handing out our own Oscars — to the CTV ads built for mobile impact. Below, we'll walk through what separates great CTV creative for app campaigns from creative that falls into the CTV-to-mobile performance gap, and then award five brands that, in our estimation, got it right.

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What Makes a Winning CTV Ad for App Campaigns

Before we hand out any awards, here are the creative standards we judge by.

Great CTV ads for app campaigns are not great TV ads with a QR code slapped on the end. They are purpose-built for a specific challenge: moving a viewer from a lean-back moment on their couch to a lean-forward action on their phone. CTV's non-skippable format means completion rates are high by nature, as high as 95.8%, compared to 81.7% on desktop and 80.7% on mobile (Innovid). But a completed view is not a conversion. Turning that captive attention into a download takes creative decisions that most TV production playbooks have never had to make.

Here is what separates the winners from the runner-ups.

1. Hook With What Your Viewer Already Feels

The best CTV ads earn attention before they ask for anything. Lead with a moment your viewer recognizes — a frustration, an aspiration, a situation they have lived — then bridge to what the app does.

• Open on emotion or tension: a relatable struggle, a desire, a problem worth solving
• Let the product enter as the answer, not the introduction
• Save brand and tagline for once the viewer is already invested

Almost 40% of TV viewers watch without sound (NCS). Your ad has to work for them too.

• Include captions that carry the full narrative, not just transcribe voiceover
• Use on-screen text to reinforce key messages and CTAs
• When audio is part of the creative strategy, make it do real work: lyrics, sound design, and VO should add a layer that lifts the whole spot

2. Design for the Viewer Who Isn't Listening

The conversion does not happen on the TV. Your creative has to close that gap deliberately.

• Reinforce the CTA both visually and in voiceover
• Make the offer worth picking up the phone for: a discount, a free trial, an exclusive unlock
• QR codes are worth considering for performance-oriented campaigns, but only when the spot is built around them, with codes visible, persistent, and paired with a strong incentive to scan.

3. Make the Path From TV to Download Obvious

CTV is the largest screen in the home. Creative that was built for social or display will show its seams.

• Use high-resolution footage and motion design built for a large format display
• Keep text large enough to read from across the room
• Avoid repurposing mobile or social assets without a full rebuild for the format

4. Produce for the Room It's Playing In

The best-performing CTV ads for app campaigns make a single, clear ask.

• One CTA. One destination. One action.
• Resist the urge to communicate multiple features or offers in a single spot
• If you have multiple messages, build multiple creative variants and test them

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And the Oscar Goes To…

Our Academy of performance experts reviewed CTV ads across verticals and awarded five Oscars to the brands that built their creative around one goal: mobile impact. Here are the winners.

Best Direction: The Oscar for Most Compelling Narrative Arc

Awarded to: Rovio — Angry Birds 2

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Most CTV ads for app campaigns open on a logo and close on a CTA, with a product demo sandwiched in between. Rovio's Angry Birds 2 spot does something more deliberate: it builds a story that earns the download.

What our Academy recognized:

• The setup earns attention immediately: A passport, lucky goggles, favorite gloves. The viewer is invested before the app appears on screen.
• The product demo is purposeful: Three phone screens showing the game UI reinforce the offline mode claim visually.
• The path to download is explicit: A search bar simulating an App Store query, followed by a "Download Now" CTA with both App Store and Google Play icons on screen.

Martin Boccardi, Rovio's Senior Performance Marketing Manager, describes the thinking behind this award-worthy CTV ad: "We think about CTV the same way we think about any performance channel: what is the action we want the viewer to take, and does every second of the creative move them closer to it? That means earning attention before you ask for anything, and making the path to the app store feel like the natural end of the story."

In this spot, it certainly does.

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Best Cinematography: The Oscar for Visual Storytelling

Awarded to: Expedia App

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Expedia's Going Places with Ken spot earns this award because it does what great cinematography is supposed to do: it makes you feel something before you've processed what you're watching.

What our Academy recognized:

• The concept is immediately arresting: A Ken doll traveling the world is unexpected, playful, and visually distinct.
• The product integration is imaginative: Rather than cutting to a close-up of the Expedia app on a standard smartphone, Ken books his trip on a Barbie-scale phone — the UI is still visible, but the storytelling never breaks.
• Branding lives in the environment: Expedia's colors are woven into Ken's world throughout, building recognition without interrupting the narrative.

This is what it looks like when a brand trusts its visuals to do the work.

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Best Original Score: The Oscar for Most Intentional Use of Audio

Awarded to: Chase Mobile App

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In Chase’s mobile app ad, the lyrics of its music “I'm the Champion, I'm number one” sets a mood and makes the argument at the same time.

What our Academy recognized:

• The lyrics do creative work: "Champion" and "number one" map directly onto the ad's narrative, where the girl using the Chase app wins the fundraiser while her cash-dependent competitor watches coins scatter across the floor.
• The sound design reinforces the contrast: The chaos of dropped change and fumbled transactions plays against the clean, confident score. You feel the difference before the app UI even appears on screen
• The app integration lands harder because of the music: Check deposits, money transfers, seamless transactions shown against a track that says winning feels like this.

When the song ends, the message sticks. That is what a great score is supposed to do.

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Best Adapted Screenplay: The Oscar for Best CTV-to-Mobile Bridge

Awarded to: Mistplay

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The hardest thing a CTV ad for an app campaign has to do is make downloading feel like the obvious next step. Mistplay's A Little Extra ad earns this award because the entire creative is engineered around that handoff.

What our Academy recognized:

• The narrative earns the pitch before making it: Selling hats for cats, dancing on social media, delivering groceries, walking dogs — the montage of relatable side hustles builds genuine empathy before the app is ever mentioned
• The value prop lands in the VO: "We've all tried ways to earn a little extra. With Mistplay, discover games you'll love and earn rewards for playing" — the transition from struggle to solution feels earned, not forced
• The CTA is clean and complete: "Download Now" with both App Store and Google Play icons on screen leaves the viewer with exactly one job to do

The results back it up. According to Noa Gutterman, SVP Consumer Marketing at Mistplay:"CTV is opening up a powerful discovery channel for Mistplay. When the creative is strong, that attention quickly turns into installs and growth."

The script was written for a TV screen. The ending was written for a mobile conversion. That is the whole point.

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Best Breakthrough Performance: The Oscar for Punching Above Your Weight

Awarded to: Hims

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Telehealth is not the category you expect to find on a best-of CTV-to-mobile list. Hims earned its spot anyway, with creative that treats the app UI as the centerpiece and product integration sharper than most campaigns from performance-focused advertisers.

What our Academy recognized:

• The app UI is the star: Check-ins from your provider, health metrics, medication orders, personalization, all shown in-app, making the product feel tangible rather than abstract.
• The search bar moment lands: Closing on a search bar that lets the viewer find exactly what they need depending on their condition reframes the app as a personal health tool, not a generic telehealth platform.
• The creative earns trust through specificity: Showing real app features in a real UI signals to a viewer that the product can actually do what the ad claims

For a category that often defaults to doctor voiceovers and stock footage, this is a breakthrough. The Academy took notice.

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Is Your App Ready for its Close Up?‍

"The biggest mistake brands make with CTV for app campaigns is treating it like traditional TV. A beautiful story isn't enough if the viewer doesn't know what to do next. The best CTV creative is designed around the moment someone picks up their phone — every visual, every line of copy, every cue should guide that transition from attention on the TV to action on mobile" — Pitch Patrisse Oguan, Head of Creative Services, RZR.

The five ads in this roundup got that right. Each one was built around a specific viewer action — a download, a search, an order — and reverse-engineered the creative from there. That is what separates CTV creative that performs from CTV creative that just gets watched.

CTV for app campaigns is still early enough that getting the creative right is a competitive edge. The brands showing up in this space with intention are driving downloads and building the kind of brand recognition that compounds over time.

If you are ready to build CTV creative that moves people from the living room to the app store, we can help. RZR's performance CTV is built to close the loop between the big screen and mobile.‍

Unlock performance CTV with RZR.