This category recognises outstanding brand strategies demonstrated through a campaign or marketing initiative that successfully reinforced the brand’s identity and connection with its target audience. Entrants are encouraged to outline how their brand strategy was developed, executed, and aligned with the overarching business goals.

Judges will look for strategies that showcased innovation, creativity, and impact, with the option to include the use of AI-driven tools or techniques, such as analytics or personalization, to enhance the strategy.

This category recognises the conceptualisation of high quality, innovative or unexpected content commissioned by a brand. This can include text, infographics, film, video games, music, online, competitions, and TV, running across all forms of marketing channels. Judges will be looking at the originality of the content and how the content stimulated interest in the targeted audience and drove customer engagement.

This category recognises exceptional strategies which utilised content as the key element of marketing to engage, inform, and inspire their target audience. Judges will be looking for a clear vision about how the content was used to enhance the overall marketing strategy, and how it led to a significant growth in brand awareness.

This category recognises the best marketing campaign, initiative or programme that addressed social, economic or environmental issues on behalf of the organisation. Judges will be looking at how the initiative raised awareness and encouraged social change to bring positive effects and outcomes for society, and the involved parties, while simultaneously raising brand reputation.

This category recognises the most creative design that formed a critical focus for the branding of a product. Judges will be looking for entries which demonstrated a tangible link between the design (for example, product packaging, premiums, POSM, collaterals, in-store design) and the marketing strategy of the product.

This category recognises the best campaign, initiative or programme that engaged new or existing customers to emotionally connect with the brand through smart and relevant communications. Judges will be looking for effective engagement strategies that went beyond advertisements and which encouraged consumers to actively interact with the brand to generate positive business outcomes.

This category recognises the best campaign, initiative or programme that demonstrated a customer-centric approach, giving consumers a seamless and intuitive experience. Judges will be looking at how the project was carefully developed with the customer in mind, and the ease of how the targeted audience was able to interact with the brand or respond to a call to action without a hitch.

This category recognises the best marketing campaign, initiative or programme that drew unique insights from effective business insights, research, data planning, measurement and analytics tools or database developments to drive the brand’s core business objectives. Judges will be looking at how the brand used that data in a campaign to understand its customers and their behaviours.

This category recognises the best marketing campaign, initiative or programme that used digital channels such as the web, social media, mobile or email to deliver an engaging consumer experience while successfully driving core business objectives. Judges will be looking at how the campaign stood out in the competitive digital space to achieve a specific marketing outcome, be it branding or prompted consumer engagement.

This category recognises the organisation that best used events to achieve a specified marketing outcome. Events can be live, virtual and/or hybrid. Judges will consider events of all sizes and scope and will be looking at how the event performed, how it engaged its audience, and the strength of the idea

This category recognises an organisation that best used a hands-on brand experience to take the target audience inside a brand or product through an innovative or creative idea. Entries can be anything from a mass-market launch to a smaller more exclusive experience for customers. Judges will be looking at how the campaign was created and implemented to allow consumers to get involved in, feel, enjoy or respond to a specific experience.

This category recognises the best financial and insurance marketing campaign or individual spot which engaged the target audience through strong creative thinking and media use to achieve a specific marketing outcome.

This category recognises an organisation that most effectively engaged its consumer markets through an integrated marketing strategy, which employed a suite of marketing tools and media channels (at least five channels) to drive core business objectives. Judges will be looking at how the unified and seamless integrated experience innovatively and effectively promoted a brand, product or service while achieving a positive marketing outcome.

This category recognises the best marketing campaign, initiative or event that successfully engaged consumers using entertaining and engaging content in the form of a game, competition or other interactive media forms such as virtual and augmented reality. Judges will be looking for how the interactive solution enhanced the brand experience and drove business objectives. We welcome entries from sophisticated gaming, VR, AR and related apps created by highly creative developers, agencies, and client marketers.

This category recognises an exceptional marketing strategy to support the launch/rebranding of a new product or brand. Judges will be looking at the impact of this launch/rebranding strategy on the product, brand or organisation’s success.

This category recognises the most outstanding marketing campaign or individual spot in the lifestyle and entertainment service sector that captivated audiences through exceptional creative thinking and strategic use of media. Entrants should successfully engaged their target audience while achieving specific marketing outcomes, such as increased brand awareness, customer engagement, or measurable business growth.

Entrants may showcase how the campaign achieved its goals while establishing strong brand differentiation and demonstrating cultural influence through trends, societal values, or lasting impact. Judges will assess the creativity, execution, and results of the campaign as well as its ability to position the brand as a leader in the lifestyle and entertainment space.

This category recognises the best campaign, initiative or programme that demonstrated a cohesive customer loyalty strategy and effective CRM programme to grow and retain existing customers through incentives while enhancing the customer proposition. It should also have encouraged greater spend, resulting in positive business outcomes.

This category recognises the organisation that best used events or a specific event targeted to the mass public to reach a specified marketing outcome. The campaign can be offline, online or hybrid. Judges will be looking for events that created a positive brand experience for the mass public and left a lingering impact on the audience.

This category recognises the organisation that best utilised media channels as their key strategic tool to execute a powerful marketing campaign, while driving core business objectives. Judges will be looking at how the effective use of media channels engaged the targeted customers and ultimately boosted business performance.

This category recognises the most effective approaches to omnichannel marketing, including how the entire customer experience was aligned across all touch-points in order to drive a customer-centric experience. Judges will be evaluating the effectiveness and results of the campaign. Entries should demonstrate how the use of omnichannel marketing increased conversion rates and helped meet campaign and business objectives.

This category recognises advertising campaigns that utilised the out-of-home (OOH) medium in a way that was innovative, creative, and successful in raising brand awareness. The OOH can include media such as billboards, digital billboards, digital screens, transit media, mobile platforms designed for an OOH audience, or any other media that targeted audiences outside the home environment. Judges will be looking at how the use of the OOH strategy was planned and executed.

This category recognises the organisation that best developed and activated a brand-relevant partnership in the form of a crossover, sponsorship or product placement. Judges will be looking at how the partnership/sponsorship reached a mutual benefit for the involved parties and delivered strong business returns.

This category recognises the best marketing campaign, initiative or programme that maximised performance and attained the desired business objectives. Judges will be looking at how the campaign optimised the performance, which includes, but is not limited to, an increase in customer engagement, the raising of the brand’s awareness, and a better ROI.

This category recognises the organisation that best enhanced its corporate branding, image or identity with consumers and other internal stakeholders through an effective implementation of strategic communications to deliver core business objectives. Judges will be looking at how the campaign managed the brand’s reputation, promoted brand values, and strengthened communications with the targeted audiences.

This category recognises organsations that have successfully executed a campaign, initiative, or program aimed at engaging and attracting customers through methods such as sampling, competitions, couponing, POSM displays, in-store promotions, e-commerce strategies, or other retail environments.

Winners should demonstrate how these efforts effectively converted customer engagement into purchases of the featured product(s). Judges will be looking at how the brand delivered a unique shopping experience and contributed to achieving its business objectives.

This category recognises the best campaign, initiative or programme that optimised social media channels to build strong relationships with customers, recruit new customers or engage existing customers, while driving core business objectives. This can be a one-off campaign or a long-term strategy. Judges will be looking at how the campaign innovatively and effectively communicated with the audience, drove customer engagement, and obtained the business objectives.

This category recognises the organisation that best used events or a specific event dedicated to a targeted audience (for example, age, gender, demographic) to achieve a specified marketing outcome. Judges will be looking for events that created a positive brand experience for the targeted audience and left a lingering impact on the audience.

This category recognises the use of any innovative technology to activate or enhance a marketing strategy, long or short-term campaign or a one-off execution. Judges will be seeking the strategic use of technology as opposed to gimmickry.

This category recognises the most effective and innovative use of an online video to achieve a specific marketing outcome, be it branding or a call to action. Judges will be looking at the creativity behind how the video helped raise brand awareness, drove customer engagement, and reached the brand’s marketing objectives.

This category recognises campaigns that successfully created highly shareable content, and generated widespread awareness and engagement through organic word-of-mouth and social sharing. Entrants should demonstrate how their viral marketing efforts captivated audiences, sparked conversations, and achieved significant brand visibility, often surpassing traditional marketing channels. Successful examples will highlight creativity, relevance, and the ability to quickly capture and hold the public’s attention.

This category is not open for direct entry. It recognises the brand that performs best at the Marketing Excellence Awards 2025, based solely on the number and types of awards won, as determined by the awards jury.

Points System:

• Gold: 4 points
• Silver: 2 points
• Bronze: 1 point

Tie-Breakers:

• Most Gold: If total points are tied, the brand with the highest number of Gold awards wins.
• Most Silver: If Gold awards are also tied, the brand with the highest number of Silver awards wins.
• Highest Average Score: If a tie still persists, the brand with the highest average score percentage (as assigned by the judges across all their winning entries) will win.