This category recognises the excellent strategic launch or rebrand of a product, brand or platform by a media entity.

Judges will be looking at the creativity of the idea and the initiative behind the launch/rebranding campaign, and how the campaign engaged the targeted audience and brought impact to the product/brand’s success.

 Supporting details: Launch/rebranding objectives, outcome, and channel(s) used for the launch/rebrand.

This category recognises the best campaign that demonstrated outstanding corporate social responsibility efforts by addressing social, economic or environmental issues on behalf of the media entity.

Judges will be looking at the creativity and innovation behind the campaign, how it was carried out, and how it contributed to positive social, economic or environmental outcomes for society and the involved parties. Entrants should showcase how the campaign successfully enhanced the media entity’s brand reputation, and its commitment to corporate social responsibility.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, and rationale for using the online medium.

This category recognises the most creative and innovative idea from a media entity for its clients to engage their audiences and drive commercial value.

Judges will be looking at the creative strategy and innovative elements behind the campaign that contributed to the client’s business objectives.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, and rationale for using the chosen medium.

This category recognises the most creative, innovative and/or effective digital campaigns/solutions from a media entity for its clients to engage their audiences and drive commercial value.

Judges will be looking at the effective and innovative digital elements of the campaign that delivered an engaging consumer experience to the audience, while successfully driving the client’s core business objectives.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, and rationale for using the chosen online medium.

This category recognises the most creative, innovative, and effective digital out-of-home campaigns from a media entity for its clients to engage their audiences and drive commercial value.

Judges will be looking at the innovative idea behind the campaign in attracting and capturing customers’ attention as well as spreading the brand’s messages to its target audiences and achieving the client’s business objectives.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, rationale for using the outdoor medium, and audience reach.

This category recognises the media entity that has delivered an experiential campaign for clients via an event, roadshow or sponsorship activity. Entries can be anything from a mass-market launch to a smaller, more exclusive experience for clients.

Judges will be looking at the creativity and strategy behind the campaign and how the campaign was created and implemented to allow consumers to get involved in, feel, enjoy or respond to a specific experience.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, and rationale for using the chosen medium.

This category recognises the most creative, innovative, and effective cross-media campaign from a media entity for its clients to engage audiences and drive commercial value. At least three different channels must have been used.

Judges will be looking at the creativity and strategy behind the campaign and how the seamless integrated experience helped the client achieve a positive marketing outcome.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, and rationale for using the chosen medium.

This category recognises the most effective omnichannel campaign that best reached and engaged an audience, while driving an immersive and customer-centric experience with clients across all touch-points.

 Judges will be looking at how effectively the media entity utilised an omnichannel approach to connect with and engage attendees in new and innovative ways that drove traffic, generated leads, identified prospects, and achieved business objectives.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, and rationale for using the chosen platforms.

This category recognises the most creative, innovative, and effective out-of-home campaigns from a media entity for its clients to engage their audiences and drive commercial value.

Judges will be looking at the innovative idea behind the campaign in attracting and capturing customers’ attention as well as spreading the brand’s messages to its target audiences. Entries should demonstrate how the campaign increased reach and interacted with customers to achieve the marketing objectives.

 Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, rationale for using the outdoor medium, and audience reach.

This category recognises the most creative, innovative, and effective campaign that successfully advocated a public cause, raised awareness of a public issue, or generated a shift in attitudes towards a public concern among the target audience.

Judges will be looking at the creativity, innovation, and effectiveness in raising awareness and influencing attitudes or behaviours related to the public cause or issue. Entrants should demonstrate how they successfully influenced attitudes and prompted positive action among the target audience regarding the public cause or issue.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, and rationale for using the chosen medium.

This category recognises the best use of real-time information, and the use of that data, to instantaneously respond and communicate with the target audience to improve engagement and achieve positive business results. 

Judges will be looking at the creativity and innovation of the strategy and how it created a personalised interaction with the targeted audience, improved customer engagement, and generated a better business result.

 Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, rationale for using the medium, audience reach, and engagement rate.

This category recognises the most creative, innovative and/or effective social media campaigns/solutions from a media entity for its clients to engage their audiences and drive commercial value.

Judges will be looking at the creative and innovative idea behind the campaign and how it successfully increased the reach of the audience, improved engagement, created buzz for the client, and achieved a good business outcome.

 Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, and rationale for using social media.

This category recognises the most creative, innovative, and effective campaigns from a media entity for its clients to draw the attention of a specific targeted group of audience (for example, parenting, beauty, financial, etc) and engaged them with the client to achieve its marketing goal.

Judges will be looking at the creative and innovative idea behind the campaign, and how it successfully brought a positive brand experience for the targeted audience and left a lingering impact on the audience.

 Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, rationale for using the chosen medium, and audience profile.

This category recognises the most effective sponsorship campaigns/solutions initiated by a media entity for its clients to raise brand awareness and drive commercial value.

Judges will evaluate the creativity, relevance, and measurable success of the sponsorship in achieving its objectives.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, and rationale for using the chosen medium.

This category recognises the most compelling and immersive campaign that created the most successful brand or consumer stories that captivated audiences. Entries should showcase the exceptional creativity and craftsmanship in presenting the brand’s narrative, and how they engaged the audience through memorable and impactful storytelling techniques.

Judges will be looking at the originality of the idea, creativity, the implementation of the idea, and how the brand’s stories left a lasting impression on audiences.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, and rationale for using the chosen medium.

This category recognises the best viral campaign that leveraged social media channels to engage customers in spreading word of mouth messages and creating viral buzz.

Judges will assess the campaign’s creativity, engagement, and measurable success in creating a viral phenomenon.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, click rate, engagement rate, and the rationale for using the online medium.

This category recognises the best acquisition and retention strategy of a media entity in maintaining and growing its customer base over the submission period. Entries should demonstrate how the strategy helped to gain new audiences and keep readers, subscribers, and audiences engaged in a highly competitive media landscape.

Judges will be looking for proactive, innovative, and ground-breaking approaches that helped to acquire new audiences, retain existing audiences and reduce the number of customer defections.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, audience growth, audience volume, and engagement ratios.

This category recognises the most effective and innovative strategy that was designed to entertain and engage targeted audiences across all platforms – from offline to online.

Judges will be looking at the creativity behind the strategy on how the media encouraged their target audience to actively interact with them, and improved audience engagement through multiple touch-points.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, rationale for using the chosen medium, and engagement ratios.

This category recognises the best original content created specifically for the media entity to drive audience engagement.

Judges will be looking at the innovative use of the original content and how the content was mapped out for a larger content strategy, addressing specific KPIs along the way.

Supporting details: Research objectives, outcome, and rationale for using the chosen medium.

This category celebrates partnerships between a media platform and a client service, channel or product, which leveraged the strength of all parties.

Judges will be looking for natural synergies which resulted in outstanding results.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, and channel(s) used for the partnership.

This category recognises the best strategy that a media entity utilised on its existing channels to promote itself.

Judges will be looking at the innovation behind the strategy and its effectiveness in promoting the media entity.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, and rationale for using the chosen medium.

This category recognises the most innovative use of branded content of a media entity on their own platforms. Submissions are open to all media platforms and can include ad-funded TV deals, branded music projects, and native advertising campaigns.

Judges will be looking at the effective use of the content, and how the content stimulated interest to the targeted audience and drove customer engagement.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, and rationale for using the chosen medium.

This category recognises the best strategic use of technology to extend a media entity’s reach and revenue opportunities across its own platforms.

Judges will assess the creativity, execution, and success of the technology-driven initiative.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, audience reach, and rationale for using the chosen technology.

This category recognises the most effective strategic use of video content, including short videos, TV commercials, or a series of videos, to attract and engage target audiences. It celebrates campaigns that successfully leveraged video content to increase platform reach and audience duration.

Judges will evaluate the quality, creativity, and execution of the video content, as well as its impact on audience engagement and alignment with campaign objectives.

Supporting details: Objectives, outcome, engagement rate, duration spent of the clients, and the rationale for using the online medium.

This category is not open for entry and will be awarded to the media entity that has performed best in the Spark awards, based solely on the number and type of awards won as determined by the awards jury.

Points Allocation for Multiple Media Entities
Lead Entity: When multiple entities collaborate on a winning entry and a lead entity is identified, the lead entity receives full points towards the overall awards. Each non-lead entity on that entry will receive 25% of the points.
Joint Submission: If two entities declare an equal partnership on a winning entry, each entity will receive 50% of the points towards the overall awards.

Points System:
Gold: 4 points
Silver: 2 points
Bronze: 1 point

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

This category is not open for entry and will be awarded to the campaign that has performed best in the Spark award, based solely on the number and type 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 campaign with the highest number of Gold awards wins.
Most Silver: If Gold awards are also tied, the campaign with the highest number of Silver awards wins.
Highest Average Score: If a tie still persists, the campaign with the highest average score percentage (as assigned by the judges across all their winning entries) will win.