This category honours outstanding campaigns, initiatives, or programs that have effectively implemented comprehensive customer loyalty strategies and robust Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programmes. Entrants should demonstrate how their efforts have successfully engaged and retained existing customers through well-designed incentives, thereby enhancing the overall customer experience. Submissions must provide evidence of increased customer engagement, elevated spending levels, and positive business outcomes resulting from the loyalty strategy.

An example of a potential entry could be similar to that of how a petrol company launched a revamped loyalty campaign offering customers more rewards. This initiative aimed to strengthen customer engagement and reward loyal patrons with enhanced benefits.

This category recognises an organisation that has pushed the boundaries and demonstrated outstanding marketing innovation in a campaign, initiative or programme, be it through the use of unconventional marketing techniques like guerrilla marketing, new technologies like augmented reality, or adapting limited resources to achieve specific marketing objectives.

This category recognises the best marketing campaign, initiative or programme aimed at a specific audience. This is not exclusive to a single audience but the majority of the target audience should be a specific demographic the campaign set out to approach. Specific audience bases could include gender, age group, interest groups (e.g. wellness, racing, esports etc.) and other profiled audiences. Entries should show why the specific audience was important and how the audience responded well.

This category recognises the organisation who best revamped a marketing team(s) to transform their marketing process and / or output. This could be a consultative project by an agency or a project conducted by in-house transformation team. Entrants should be able to demonstrate an effective transformation with minimal disruption and a positive impact on subsequent marketing campaign results.

This category recognises the organisation that best utilised media channels as their key strategic tool to execute a powerful marketing campaign while successfully driving core business objectives.

This category recognises the most effective and innovative use of mobile marketing. Campaigns could have included the use of apps and mobile as a media format, mobile app marketing and / or marketing and advertising through mobile and apps to achieve a specific marketing outcome, be it branding, a prompted consumer behaviour or simply increased consumption.

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.

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 impactful out-of-home (OOH) campaigns that creatively and effectively engage audiences in public spaces. Submissions should focus on the innovative use of outdoor spaces, such as billboards, transit ads, and digital screens, to amplify brand presence.

An example of a potential entry could be similar to 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%.

This category recognises the best performing marketing campaign, initiative or programme. Campaigns entered into this category should be aimed at driving actions and response as opposed to simply raising awareness. Entries should demonstrate evidence of campaigns having been optimised in real time and remuneration to the relevant vendors and platforms should have been based on results delivered.

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.

An example of a potential entry could be similar to that of how a bank implemented a programmatic approach in their campaign, utilising data-driven targeting to effectively reach and educate the public on scam prevention.

This category recognises the best public sector or non-profit campaign, initiative or programme that raised awareness and successfully drove business objectives for government initiatives, community services and / or NGOs.

This category recognises campaigns / strategies / programmes that focus on building long-term engagement. Judges will be looking for entries that go above and beyond intrusive advertising and sales messages and focus on enhancing loyalty through open communication and personalised messaging / offers.

This category recognises the organisation that most effectively ran a campaign, initiative or programme designed to reach shoppers via sampling, competitions, in-store or in a retail environment etc., and successfully translated this into future purchases of the featured product(s).

This category recognises the best use of search engine marketing strategies, including SEO and SEM, to drive online visibility, engagement, and conversions. Entrants should demonstrate innovative techniques in optimising content, targeting relevant keywords, and utilising paid search to achieve measurable business outcomes.

An example of a potential entry could be similar to that of how a fashion brand employed SEO and SEM to enhance visibility for its ‘Fashion Week’ event. Through optimised content and targeted search ads, the brand increased website traffic and sales during the event.

*This category was previously ‘Excellence in Search Marketing’

This category recognises the best campaign, initiative or programme that optimised social media channels to build strong relationships with customers, recruit new audiences or engage existing consumers whilst driving core business objectives. This can be a one-off campaign or a longer-term strategy.

This category recognises the organisation that best developed and activated a brand-relevant sponsorship activity to target a specific audience or marketing opportunity. Entrants should have built successful partnerships with key stakeholders to deliver strong business returns.

An example of a potential entry could be similar to 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%.

This category recognises the best campaign, initiative or programme that successfully captured its target audience and subsequently turned into a self-replicating viral process with its results meeting the organisation’s core business objectives.

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

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.

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.