Award Categories
1. Excellence in Advertising
2. Excellence in AI-Powered Storytelling
This category recognises marketing campaigns that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to create captivating and personalised brand narratives. Whether through chatbots, predictive content, or AI-driven recommendations, these campaigns demonstrate a mastery of technology to connect with consumers on a deeper, more individual level. Entrants should showcase how AI was instrumental in tailoring storytelling and message delivery.
3. Excellence in Anniversary Marketing
Whether it’s the 1st 25th or even 100th year of a company’s existence, anniversaries are important milestones that provide the perfect opportunity to drum up excitement, awareness and engagement. This category recognises the campaigns that take full advantage of the business’ anniversary to make positive buzz and grow their market share.
Judges will be assessing the overall strategy and impact of the anniversary component on the overall success of the campaign. Where possible, demonstrate how the anniversary component led to a more successful and effective outcome towards campaign and business objectives.
4. Excellence in B2B Marketing
This category recognises the increasingly creative methods used to reach B2B audiences. This category encompasses all advertising; branding, marketing, and communications work for B2B brands and can include a one-off or on-going campaign.
5. Excellence in Brand Awareness
6. Excellence in Brand Strategy
7. Excellence in Communications / Public Relations
8. Excellence in Consumer Insights / Market Research
This category recognises organisations that have effectively leveraged research, data analytics, or database development to uncover pivotal consumer insights that directly shaped a campaign, initiative, or communication.
An example of a potential entry could be like that of how an instant noodle brand leveraged local market research to develop new flavours that resonated with regional preferences, leading to a successful product launch with 15% higher-than-expected sales.
9. Excellence in Content Marketing
10. Excellence in CSR / Cause Marketing
This category recognises the best marketing campaign, initiative, or programme by an organisation for a charity or cause the organisation had a partnership or association with. The organisation should be able to prove the initiative benefited both parties and had positive effects and outcomes for society or the cause.
11. Excellence in Customer Engagement
12. Excellence in Data-Driven Marketing
This category recognises the best marketing campaign, initiative or programme that adopted innovative and effective business intelligence, data planning, measurement, and analytic tools to improve targeting whilst successfully driving the organisation’s core business objectives.
13. Excellence in Digital Marketing
This category recognises the best marketing campaign, initiative or programme that used digital channels such as web, mobile, email etc. to deliver an engaging consumer experience whilst successfully driving core business objectives.
14. Excellence in eCommerce Marketing
This category recognises the brand / marketplace that had an outstanding performance in the online selling of products, services, or information to end users. Entrants should illustrate the best innovative eCommerce strategy that successfully communicated a brand’s image, changed consumers’ behaviours and drive consumer traffic to the ecommerce platform. Judges will be looking at how the strategy was developed and how the online platform(s) were used in offering a unique online shopping experience and which helped to achieve brands’ business targets.
15. Excellence in Event Marketing
This category recognises the organisation that best used events as a key tool to increase brand awareness and customer engagement. Entries can be for small-scale events or large-scale events targeting the general public. This category is open to physical, virtual or hybrid event executions.
16. Excellence in Experiential Marketing
17. Excellence in Gaming
This category recognises the best marketing campaign, initiative or event that utilises gamification or gaming to entertain consumers and to enhance the brand experience while driving core business objectives. The campaign can be carried out both online or a live gaming event.
18. Excellence in Influencer / KOLs Marketing
This category recognises the organisation that effectively used influencers within a marketing campaign to enhance awareness and successfully achieve business objectives. Influencers could include appropriate experts, ambassadors, bloggers or celebrities etc.
19. Excellence in Integrated Marketing
This category recognises the organisation that best engaged its target audience through an integrated marketing strategy. This strategy should have employed a suite of marketing tools and at least 3 media channels whilst successfully driving core business objectives.
20. Excellence in Interactive Marketing / AR & VR
21. Excellence in Launch Marketing
22. Excellence in Live-Streaming Marketing *NEW*
Examples include product launches, live shopping events, educational streams, or interactive Q&A sessions that deliver real-time value and foster community engagement.
23. Excellence in Location-Based Marketing
For example, a fast-food chain utilised real-time location data to adjust its online advertising spend, ensuring its ads were directed to customers based on their proximity to stores. This strategy significantly enhanced ad relevance and increased foot traffic to physical locations, illustrating the power of location-based marketing in driving consumer engagement.
24. Excellence in Loyalty Marketing
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 whilst enhancing the customer proposition. It should also have encouraged greater spend, resulting in positive business outcomes.
25. Excellence in Marketing Innovation
26. Excellence in Marketing to a Specific Audience
27. Excellence in Marketing Transformation
28. Excellence in Media Strategy
29. Excellence in Mobile Marketing
30. Excellence in Multilingual Marketing
An example of a potential entry could be similar to that of how an airline localised messaging in multiple regional languages, driving a 20% increase in bookings.
31. Excellence in Omnichannel
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.
32. Excellence in Out-of-Home Advertising
An example of a potential entry could be like that of how an electronics company used eye-catching digital billboards showcased dynamic content to promote the phone’s features, boosting pre-orders by 30%.
33. Excellence in Performance Marketing
34. Excellence in Personalisation Marketing
This category recognises the best marketing campaign in perfecting the consumer journey and creates more personalised marketing or one-to-one marketing to deliver individualised content to recipients across channels, and buying stages. Entrants should illustrate the strategies to deliver value and expected experiences to customers. Judges will be looking at how the strategy was developed and how the organisations leverage omni-channel advertising to drive personalised customer experiences in real-time.
35. Excellence in Programmatic Marketing
36. Excellence in Relationship Marketing
37. Excellence in Search Marketing
38. Excellence in Social Media Marketing
39. Excellence in TV / Video Advertising
40. Excellence in Urban Guerrilla Marketing
This category celebrates guerrilla marketing campaigns that creatively utilise urban spaces to surprise and engage audiences in unexpected ways. Submissions should highlight innovative, attention-grabbing tactics that disrupt everyday environments in an unconventional manner.
An example of a potential entry could be like that of how an energy drink company used a high-impact stunt involving skydivers landing in the city centre, creating buzz, and increasing social media mentions by 50%.
41. Excellence in Viral Marketing
42. Marketing Leader of the Year (Talent Category)
This category recognises outstanding leadership and excellence from a brand-side chief marketing officer / head of marketing unit or marketing leader who has made a significant impact to their brand’s overall advertising / marketing output.
Entrants can nominate themselves or others; they should show achievements against objectives and evidence of business impact in the following areas within the eligibility period:
- Creativity, innovation and the ability to pivot quickly and effectively
- Strategic, out-of-the-box thinking
- Excellent execution that helped manage cash flow for optimum business health
- New business or the creation of new business opportunities / new markets etc.
- Stability of the organisation’s business performance
- Unquestionable leadership, motivation and support for their teams
- Any other exceptional action, achievement or work that especially merits this award
43. Marketing Team of the Year (Talent Category)
This category recognises outstanding work from a client-side marketing team which has made a significant impact to their brand/organisation’s overall marketing campaigns, executions, and results. Entrants can use one particular campaign as a case study of evidence to form their entry or can use aspects from various projects, but all work must have taken place within the eligibility period and they must show evidence of:
- Outstanding achievements in campaigns and project management
- Creativity and innovation
- Strategic thinking
- Excellent planning and execution
- Successful results against objectives / KPIs
- Any other exceptional achievements or work that especially merits this award
44. Marketer of the Year (Not for Entry)
This category recognises the brand that performs best at the Marketing Excellence Awards 2025.
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.