Awards Categories & Disciplines

Background and Marketing Challenge/Objectives

• Identify the key business challenge, market and competitive insights that led to this campaign. Could also be driven by an internal business challenge.
• Clarify if this campaign was a new initiative or an extension of a previous program.
• What were the quantifiable core business objectives (ex: "generate a lift of 2% in gross sales")?
• Provide KPI’s that support the business challenge that this campaign set out to address.
• What were the campaign specific communication objectives (ex: "generate an increase in brand awareness of 5% points etc.)?
• Include any key market and competitive insights. 

 

Creative Idea & Execution

• How did your strategy manifest into a creative look and feel?
• What was the inspiration behind the creative idea (can be tied to insights)?
• How did you leverage the many platform/media options to further amplify your creative product? And how did the creative idea manifest itself across various channels?
• What made it stand out and be noticed by your target?

 

Strategy/Insights

• What was the strategic impetus and key consumer insight that shaped the campaign's direction?
• What problem were you trying to solve and how did this strategic insight shape this campaign?
• What was unique and different about your approach?
• Who was the core target market/audience?
• What behaviour or attitude were you trying to invoke?
• Research, insights, statistics, and any data supporting the strategy are key.

 

Results

• Confirm how your campaign performed against the numbers provided in the objectives section in Question 1. Did you reach your objectives?
• Identify KPIs (key performance indicators) that proved your marketing initiative delivered a positive business impact for the advertiser.
• Understanding that some results are confidential, try to provide at minimum, comparisons like industry benchmarks, past results from the company, showing growth % etc.

Automotive

Product and services include:

• Manufacturers
• Dealers
• Aftermarket
• Automotive services

Scope Guidance:

• Use this category when the primary product or service relates directly to vehicles or automotive services.

Business

B2B product and services include:

• Information technologies (ex: hardware, software and networking system infrastructure)
• Transportation
• Delivery
• Professional services (ex. real estate, legal, etc.)
• Business self–promotion (a company promoting to other businesses)

Scope Guidance:

• Use this category when the primary target audience is another business rather than consumers.

Consumer Products & Services

Products intended for:

• Personal care
• For use in the home

These can include consumer goods, books, electronics, beauty products, consumer devices/software, sports/leisure equipment, clothing

Entertainment services, cable, media, mobile, internet (not in a retail environment)

*Excluding F&B, automotive, financial and health care products. Refer to these categories.

Scope Guidance:

• Use this category when the product brand is the primary advertiser (not the retailer).

Financial

All financial product and services from financial institutions and include programs developed around:

• Lead generation
• Traffic building
• Customer service
• Order generation
• Database building
• Retention or acquisition

These can include all banking services, credit (cards), insurance, investment, new products, improving accessibility, and wealth management.

Scope Guidance:

• Applies to financial institutions and financial-product-led campaigns.

Food and Beverage

Products intended for:

• Consumer consumption

*Excluding products for health care, personal care or for the home.

Scope Guidance:

• Use this category when the primary offering is a food or beverage product (as opposed to a retailer or restaurant brand campaign).

Healthcare

Products (OTC included) and/or services intended for maintenance and improvement of physical and mental health campaigns supporting pharmaceutical, health & wellness clinics/centres and hospitals.

Scope Guidance:

• Commercial healthcare products and services including pharmaceutical brands, OTC products, clinics, and wellness providers.
• Hospital foundation fundraising or charitable healthcare initiatives should be submitted under Social Causes.

Retail/Consumer Businesses

Initiated by:

• Retailers (off-line and online) including restaurants, gyms, and automotive retailers
• Dealers
• Distributors, delivery services
• Manufacturers
• Food services stores to build traffic and sales

These include catalogue and e–commerce websites and other interactive methods that include product information and ordering devices.

Scope Guidance:

• Use this category when the retailer or point-of-sale brand is the primary advertiser driving the campaign (not the product manufacturer).

Social Causes

This includes:

• NGO
• PSAs
• Charities
• Fund-raising
• Causes
• Foundations
• Associations, government, public sector supporting a specific social cause.

Scope Guidance:

• Includes nonprofit and charitable healthcare fundraising (including hospital foundations) to reduce overlap with Healthcare.

Brand Building

Long-term marketing initiatives whose primary objective is to influence or shift brand perception at scale. Campaigns must be in-market for a minimum of four months to demonstrate sustained impact with strong results. 

*Note: Short-term campaigns under four months should be submitted under the Business/Brand Impact discipline.. 

Success is defined by: 

• Achieving excellence in creativity and strategy, with the ability to show positive long-term business results based on stated objectives and KPIs. Results provided can vary (ex: sales, brand lift, measured insights, results and media). 
• Great campaigns can also showcase a range of media and technology: digital, social, broadcast, out-of-home, print, as well as direct (not mandatory). 
• Campaign can be a product launch or traditional brand category. 

Measurement & Evaluation: 

• Results should be explained in context relative to the campaign’s scale, category norms, and stated objectives. 
• Benchmarks, baselines, or year-over-year comparisons are encouraged where meaningful and available, but are not mandatory. 

Business/Brand Impact

Short term campaigns play a vital role in the success of building business through activating a rapid consumer response. As compared with “Brand Building”, these efforts are designed to generate immediate outcomes, within one day to four months in market. 

*Note: Campaigns designed to strengthen long-term brand equity should be submitted under Brand Building discipline. 

These campaigns should demonstrate: 

• Seasonal or tactical advertising 
• The ability to drive positive outcomes as stated by the client’s objectives including increase in sales, web or store traffic, event participation or rapid change in consumer behavior, increase in acquisition (which may include e-commerce success), conversation rates, retention and leads. 
• Provide the KPI that this campaign was designed to meet and how the campaign delivered against them. 
• An insightful, creative, or innovative means of engaging the consumer in any form(s) of media including broadcast, social, experiential digital, print, OOH, or direct 

Measurement & Evaluation: 

• Results should be presented with context (baseline, benchmark, or prior performance where available) and explained relative to scale and duration. 
• Benchmarks, baselines, or year-over-year comparisons are encouraged where meaningful and available, but are not mandatory. 

Customer Experience & Shopper Marketing

While distinct in scope, Customer Experience, and Shopper Marketing share a common goal: building stronger, more valuable relationships between brands, and their customers. Shopper marketing influences purchase decisions at critical moments in the retail or commerce environment. Customer Experience operates at a broader level — designing and delivering every interaction a person has with a brand across the full lifecycle, from first contact through long-term loyalty. Together, this discipline recognizes work that shapes how customers feel, decide, and behave at every stage of their relationship with a brand. 

Shopper Marketing focuses on influencing purchase behaviour through retailer partnerships, commerce environments, and activation-based tactics, including: 

1. Sweepstakes or Contests 
2. Online Couponing 
3. Gifts with Purchase (GWP) 
4. Retail and In-Store Activity 
5. E-Commerce and Online Activity 
6. Sampling 
7. Partnerships and Sponsorships 
8. Account-Based Marketing 
9. Channel Partner Marketing Programs 

Customer Experience focuses on the design and delivery of brand-led interactions across the end-to-end customer relationship, including: 

1. Onboarding and Welcome Programs 
2. Loyalty and Retention Strategies 
3. Service Design and Experience Innovation 
4. Digital Engagement and Personalization 
5. Customer Lifecycle Journey Management 
6. Packaging as Experience 
7. Event Activations 

Entries may focus on a single touchpoint or span multiple stages of the customer journey — whether targeting new acquisition, driving repeat purchase, deepening loyalty, strengthening partner relationships, or elevating the overall brand experience. 

Measurement & Evaluation: 

• Shopper Marketing entries should demonstrate influence on purchase decisions through metrics such as conversion, sell-through, basket lift, or retailer outcomes 
• Customer Experience entries should demonstrate improvement in customer perception, satisfaction, retention, usage, or lifecycle progression 
• Success measures should align to the initiative type — not all entries are expected to demonstrate direct sales lift 
• Results should be contextualized against audience size, baseline performance, or category benchmarks where available 

Engagement 

Engagement builds and sustains meaningful dialogue between brands and their audiences—whether B2B, B2C, partners, or employees. Unlike one-off campaigns, engagement discipline's primary objective is to build and deepen ongoing relationships with a defined audience over time. 

This discipline encompasses work that creates ongoing interaction across two primary approaches: 

Broad reach engagement uses social media, influencer partnerships, and community platforms to spark continued exposure and dialogue through:  

• Responses to current news or cultural moments 
• Public interest topics and conversations 
• Influencer collaborations 
• Product launches or organizational updates 

Targeted relationship engagement uses CRM, loyalty programs, or 1:1 channels to drive progression through specific customer lifecycle moments:

• Acquisition and onboarding 
• Welcome and activation sequences 
• Cross-sell and upsell strategies 
• Retention, reactivation, or win-back programs 
• End-to-end lifecycle journey orchestration 

Measurement & Evaluation: 

• Success should demonstrate meaningful interaction or relationship progression aligned to objectives 
• Reach or impressions alone are not sufficient without evidence of interaction quality and relevance  
• Results should be explained in context (audience size, baseline, prior performance where available) 

Innovative Media 

Innovative Media redefines what's possible when media strategy becomes a creative force—not just a distribution channel, but the engine that accelerates ideas and transforms how audiences experience brands. This discipline recognizes work that challenges traditional media applications, unlocks new audience behaviors, and establishes new standards for the industry. 

Winning entries demonstrate how media strategy itself drives innovation through: 

Reimagining existing channels to disrupt category norms and unlock disproportionate impact:  

• Breaking from traditional channel applications to create unexpected brand experiences 
• Leveraging familiar platforms in ways that fundamentally shift audience behavior 
• Turning media constraints into creative opportunities that amplify results 

Pioneering emerging platforms to establish new possibilities before they become standard practice:  

• Early adoption that shapes how brands can use new technologies or channels 
• Media-led strategies where the platform choice itself transforms the creative execution 
• Approaches that live beyond the initial moment and influence broader industry thinking 

Entries must demonstrate how the media strategy accelerated creative ideas and drove measurable business impact. Strong submissions go beyond the client brief or pivot from traditional brand norms, showcasing media innovation that doesn't just reach audiences—it fundamentally changes how they interact with brands. 

Measurement & Evaluation: 

• Innovation should be explained in context—why this approach was disruptive for the category, audience, or channel itself 
• Entries must demonstrate business effectiveness, not novelty alone 
• Results should show disproportionate impact relative to investment, audience size, or category benchmarks 

Public Relations

Public Relations is a critical discipline of skillfully communicating an organization, individual or program’s message, using a variety of earned, owned, paid and shared tactics, to build mutually beneficial relationships with the public, which helps to build brand reputation. A public relations strategy could include earned media campaigns, events, social media and stakeholder communications, among other activities. 

Entries can cover many areas including: 

• Crisis management  
• Corporate social responsibility/Social Causes/Cause Related  
• Brand development  
• Community relations  
• Media relations  
• Government relations 
• Influencer campaigns 
• Corporate communications  
• Event or Experiential 
• Employee communications 
• Mergers, Acquisitions & Divestitures 

Measurement & Evaluation: 

• Success should be demonstrated through credibility, influence, engagement,  stakeholder response, reputational impact, behavioral change, business impact, and/or earned media outcomes presented in context. 
• Earned Media volume alone does not determine effectiveness. 

Sponsorship (NEW) 

Sponsorship initiatives strengthen brand relevance, deepen audience connection, and create unique opportunities for engagement by leveraging partnerships with sports, arts, culture, entertainment, community, or media properties. These programs use the equity and reach of the sponsored property to authentically align a brand with audiences and deliver meaningful business and brand-building impact. 

Sponsorship campaigns can be short-term or long-term and should demonstrate how the partnership enabled distinct value or access that could not be achieved through traditional marketing alone. 

Entries must demonstrate that the partnership provided unique rights, access, or integration that could not be achieved through standard paid media. 

Programs may include: 

• In-venue activations 
• Content integration 
• Experiential moments 
• Media amplification 
• Influencer or talent partnerships 
• Community programs 
• Retail tie-ins 
• Digital and social extensions 

Success is defined by: 

• A strong strategic fit between the brand and the sponsored property, including clear audience alignment, shared values, or mutual objectives. 
• Effective and creative use of sponsorship assets, demonstrating how rights, access, content, talent, or experiences were activated in compelling and innovative ways. 
• Integrated execution across relevant channels (digital, social, broadcast, experiential, retail, influencer, PR, content, or media — where appropriate). 
• Measurable results aligned to the stated KPIs, which may include brand lift, awareness, perception change, engagement, sales impact, participation, community outcomes, or customer behaviour. 
• Evidence of mutual benefit, showcasing how both the brand and the property gained value through the partnership. 

Measurement & Evaluation: 

• Clearly articulate the strategic rationale for selecting the property. 
• Demonstrate how sponsorship rights were activated beyond logo placement or passive presence. 
• Present results in context relative to objectives, scale, and partnership structure. 
• Benchmarks, baselines, or year-over-year comparisons are encouraged where meaningful but not mandatory.