Whether you’re still basking in the glory of your win or curious to see who reigned supreme at the 2023 B2B Marketing Awards, we’re here to break down all the gold, silver and bronze winners. See how some of B2B’s best managed to snag their respective awards on the big night. Fancy seeing some snapshots of the big night? Click here for all pictures – from the winners to the reception and much more!This report gives you the headline overview of each campaign, so feel free to skip to the section relevant to you! We know there’s a lot to get through… For further exclusive content on Propolis, our global community for B2B marketing leaders, sign up here.Category 1: Best multi or omnichannel campaign
Gold: ‘20 Grand in your Hand’ for Reliance Worldwide Corporation (RWC)’ by Milestone Creative
RWC launched the campaign ‘20 Grand in your Hand’ under its JG Speedfit brand, this is the first big sales promotion campaign that Milestone Creative has run since the pandemic. The aim was to spread some joy by offering one lucky plumber the chance to win 20 Grand in our UK-wide campaign. As well as creating an uplift in sales, they wanted to strengthen the relationships with their distribution partners and create excitement within the community of plumbers. Halfway through the 6-month campaign, they were so pleased with the results that they decided to enter these awards prior to the campaign concluding in July 2023. They had already exceeded their sales target by +100% and the average engagement rate doubled the industry benchmark (ROI = 9x). Their strong creative execution is working well, resulting in lots of user-generated content. Their multi-channel approach has increased their reach and visibility, with a consistent look and feel across digital and traditional channels.Engagement metrics also show the campaign is delivering way beyond their short-term tactical goals. It’s also strengthening our long-term trade relationships and positive brand leader perceptions.
Silver: ‘Gates Electric Thinking’ for Gates Corporation, by LAW Creative
The EU has targeted zero emissions for vehicles by 2035, which poses a significant challenge to the automotive aftermarket (garages). This industry will face shortages of necessary skills, knowledge, and tools. The campaign highlights how Gates supports its partners in the aftermarket industry to embrace these changes and prepare for the future. Gates offers high-quality parts and components, as well as training and support, which sets them apart from competitors. Instead of viewing the shift to electric as a daunting task, Gates’ support demonstrates to garages how they can adapt and evolve in the future of mobility.The objective was to increase brand awareness by engaging, educating, and showcasing Gates as an industry leader. Additionally, Law Creative aimed to generate 100 MQLs and €500K in product sales. The campaign also generated over 3M impressions, 201K visitors to the campaign landing page, and a 12.74% average interaction rate, as well as 146,265 YouTube views. It delivered 545 MQLs and a 267% ROI, with a robust pipeline for future growth.
Bronze: ‘Best multichannel campaign: MHUK partnership’ by Lloyds Bank
Lloyds Bank prides itself on providing support and guidance for businesses of every shape and size, helping them to build sustainable financial resilience. And after the struggles of coping with the COVID-19 pandemic followed by the cost of living crisis, this backing became more vital than ever. However, it was keen to look beyond financial help by doing something positive to ease the relentless pressures on small business owners’ mental health. Further underscoring the campaign’s resounding success, all 1,040 available therapeutic coaching sessions were swiftly snapped up, attesting to the imperative need and resonating impact of the campaign’s outreach efforts. .
Category 2: Best use of third party or paid media
Gold: ‘When You Don’t Use ABAX’ for ABAX, by The Croc
How do you boost demand for a brand that nobody in the UK has heard of, and whose audience – builders – hate advertising? Simply, you don’t advertise to them, you bring them the personalities they love, on the platforms they love. Equipment tracking firm ABAX helps construction firms prevent theft. But hard to reach and harder to impress, how could The Croc connect with the UK’s builders?Ironically, the best way to get a builder to take something seriously is by making them laugh. The hero stunt in the series, hosted by construction influencer Ryan Belcher, sees a builder lose their entire inventory overnight. Then, the next day, mid-meltdown, all the drama is resolved by ABAX, which instantly locates the equipment via GPS.
Silver: ‘Capturing the elusive 95%’ for Virgin Media O2 Business, by The Marketing Practice
At any one time, only 5% of buyers are in the market, according to research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute . The remaining 95% may be anything from years to days away from purchase. As a B2B vendor, how do you cater to this vast and varied group so that when they flip from the 95% to the 5%, your brand is front of mind?Virgin Media O2 Business (VMO2B) had run an always-on media campaign for its business mobile offering, but results didn’t meet expectations. In 2022, VMO2B commissioned The Marketing Practice (TMP), working alongside media agency Havas, to design a new programme. The team devised a differentiated message and distinctive creative assets that would stand out in a saturated market. Eloqua email nurture journeys were added alongside paid media to generate more data on campaign performance and extra touchpoints for mental availability.Weekly syncs allowed the teams to optimise in real time based on results and engagement; refocusing on the best-performing assets and the highest-value audience groups.
Category 3: Best use of events (physical, digital or hybrid)
Gold: ‘Step inside the wonderful world of Splunk, powered by AWS’ for Splunk, by The Marketing Practice
B2B technology does amazing things, but it isn’t always obvious how to harness it for your own business. As a prospective customer, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the abstract was made concrete? If you could walk, step by step, through a journey that mirrors your world, to get clarity on how a vendor can improve things?In 2022, Splunk and their partner AWS set themselves the challenge of bringing their offering to life for different industry segments. Splunk, powered by AWS, uses data to help firms create a safer and more resilient digital world, but they were struggling to convey their full capabilities in a way that inspired customers. They briefed agency The Marketing Practice to create a customer event space which would become known as the Splunk Immersive Experience powered by AWS.The team transformed a part of Splunk’s London office so that events could be held which offered customers a personalised, interactive journey through Splunk’s propositions, starting with retail: from e-commerce to logistics and in-store experiences. Since the launch event, the SIE rollout has been sharply accelerated to cater to overwhelming customer demand. APAC and US SIEs will be launched over the next 12 months.
Silver: ‘Power to the Marketer’ by Emarsys
Emarsys, an SAP company, is an omnichannel customer engagement platform used by marketers in leading retail, e-commerce and consumer brands. For three years, Emarsys has run a highly successful digital festival, bringing together ecommerce, retail and consumer marketers.With Emarsys launching a new brand narrative focused on empowering marketers, the latest festival needed to reflect this repositioning and put empowerment at its heart. Enter, Power to the Marketer, a new hybrid festival providing insights from leading brands and connecting marketers with their peers online and in person. Where other marketing events simply talked about the power of omnichannel marketer, Power to the Marketer brought the concept to life with a truly cross-channel, hybrid event.Spanning co-ordinated digital and physical events in New York, London, Berlin, Sydney, Singapore and Paris, Power to the Marketer was Emarsys’ biggest ever festival, proving the real-world impact of a truly omnichannel approach. Best of all, it ticked all of Emarsys’ business objectives, driving awareness, engagement and revenue.
Silver: ‘Digital Engineering Awards’, by L&T Technology Services
The awards space in the technology domain is filled with many prestigious names. However, most are specific to IT. Technology people experience daily has a lot of digital engineering happening in the background. It’s often never celebrated. In this world of IT awards, L&T Technology Services wanted to create a novel awards platform that celebrated excellence in ‘Digital Engineering’.The goal was to establish an impartial awards platform for ER&D spenders to showcase their achievements in digital engineering. However, as a service provider, LTTS may have been perceived as biassed in developing the Digital Engineering Awards. To ensure impartiality, LTTS teamed up with ISG, a global technology research and advisory firm, to evaluate entries. Additionally, they partnered with CNBC-TV18 as a media ally to provide extensive coverage on a global scale.The result? LTTS received 120+ nominations from 70+ organisations. This also enabled LTTS to engage with 650+ key decision makers from these organisations and improved brand visibility. The platform, while being neutral, also enhanced brand visibility to multiple Fortune 500 companies.
Category 4: Best public relations campaign
Gold: ‘Shaping the UK Political and Economic Landscape for Pragmatic’ for Pragmatic, by Brands2Life
Pragmatic wanted to help shape a better business environment for growth; namely by influencing the UK government’s semiconductor strategy. Building brand awareness and filtering messaging to its key influencers and decision makers within the government that had a vested interest in the success of this semiconductor strategy was critical to this.PR and earned media was the primary tool to influence these stakeholders – building a much bolder, stronger and more influential brand name and ensuring its key messages were included in articles to educate them on the growth opportunities flexible semiconductors offer to the UK and wider global industries. The media engagement results also provided the credibility needed to secure meetings with senior political figures across all parties, leading to a roundtable which gave rise to the production of a Pragmatic owned report on how to achieve science superpower status within the UK.This was sent to all government and political stakeholders, and released to media, generating further coverage and meetings and ultimately resulted in the inclusion of flexible semiconductors within the strategy and the start of a better business environment for Pragmatic. The campaign also drove a 250% increase in business enquiries and sales leads for the company.
Silver: ‘Accounts Deceivable’ for Medius, by Fight or Flight
Finance professionals underestimate the scale of financial fraud. This was a challenge for Medius, a B2B provider of anti-fraud software. The solution? Tell a hard-hitting, moving story that was impossible to forget.Fight or Flight created Accounts Deceivable, a true-crime podcast, which examined the human cost of financial fraud. Persuading both victims and fraudsters to participate was a coup for the show – typically neither are comfortable talking on the record. The podcast was a major hit thanks to smart storytelling and an agile social strategy that drove thousands of downloads. Accounts Deceivable ultimately reached the top 150 business podcasts, an astonishing achievement for a niche B2B brand.The campaign’s stellar media coverage not only boosted traffic but helped to tell an important story about white collar crime at a time when life is becoming unaffordable – and fraud more enticing.
Bronze: ‘A Love Letter to Hospitality’ for BRITA, by Speed
BRITA Professional wanted to raise awareness of its service excellence and position itself as a hospitality industry partner. However, 2022 was the toughest year on record for the industry. 91% were suffering from mental health problems. When times are tough, people rely on friends. Work best friends provide a greater sense of wellbeing and a seven-fold increase in productivity. Yet only 30% of employees have a work best friend. In hospitality, 80% do.These unique friendships deserved recognition. PR enabled them to reach 3.25m, delivering emotive content from the people who make hospitality wonderful, those who work in it. BRITA achieved a 650% increase against the coverage target and helped shift the mindset of an entire industry (80% had heard of the campaign and 72% said it made them feel more positive). Authentic influencers and respected media drove grounds well of positive sentiment. It turned the tide with a movement helping the nation rediscover its love for hospitality. BRITA is now looking to extend into 2023 and activating it globally.
Category 5: Best use of creative
Gold: ‘PERFECT HARMONY’ by Addleshaw Goddard
In what is quite possibly a B2B marketing first, law firm Addleshaw Goddard turned traditional tactics on their head by launching the first ever legal thought leadership campaign recorded in a music studio.Interviewing over 110 business leaders at large companies, the firm uncovered more than a dozen practical, human-centric insights into how company legal teams can add even more strategic value to their Boards and Executive teams. Pivotally, it revealed that companies report far better harmony when a General Counsel (GC) is involved in strategic projects. And Addleshaw Goddard brought that core finding to life in an utterly unique and evocative way…The firm invited musicians to record songs inspired by the research. But there was a twist… With the G & C notes removed from the music, the songs sounded terrible and lost their meaning – dramatically underlining that ‘everything is better with the GC.’ That distinctive approach to thought leadership struck a chord with business leaders, earning thousands of content views, driving contact with hundreds of senior businesspeople, and earning immediate new work. The resultant insights proved to be valuable for the successful delivery of the ‘Perfect Harmony’ campaign.
Silver: ‘Build your own satellite’ for Inmarsat, by Ogilvy
How do you persuade Internet of Things (IoT) companies and investors to abandon plans to launch their own satellite constellations – and plug into Inmarsat’s existing one instead?Satellite IoT is a huge growth market. To meet the demand, lots of companies are planning to design, launch and maintain their own constellations of small satellites. But they don’t fully appreciate the complexities or the huge financial implications.The brief was to persuade them to stop wasting time and money building their own satellites and choose risk-free satellite connectivity from Inmarsat’s existing network instead.Ogilvy needed to create something completely different to the industry norms to capture our audience’s attention and generate potential new leads.They did this by sending out 250 ‘Build Your Own Satellite Constellation’ Direct Mail kits to a highly targeted, highly specialised audience of IoT businesses and investors to achieve cut-through in a fast-moving industry.
Bronze: ‘FISH & CHIPMUNKS’ by Addleshaw Goddard
Addressing the growing market demand for freelance lawyers, but facing multiple competitors, law firm Addleshaw Goddard ran a highly creative campaign that showcased how it perfectly matches legal freelancers and legal clients. In a category perhaps not famous for humorous communications, the firm ran an unmissable social media campaign that dramatised how relationships that are almost right are 100% wrong. High impact, creative visuals featuring ‘Fish & Chipmunks,’ ‘Mac & Trees,’ ‘Burger & Flies’ and more all cut through and resonated.Utterly distinctive from industry norms, and for only a modest budget, the campaign attracted significant market interest, contributed to an immediate spike in new work, and has so far achieved a return on marketing investment of 1226%.
Category 6: Best digital experience
Gold: ‘Mission possible: Gamified engagement experience to support Splunk adoption’ for Splunk, by Agent3
The world’s a noisy place, especially online. Communities are overwhelmed with choice and people only have a finite amount of time to consume content. Digital experience is everything. Visually appealing content hubs only take you so far. Eventually, there’s a need for something truly differentiating – something that elevates the brand above the noise and makes engagement worthwhile, exciting and a good use of time.Agent3, a leading global ABM agency, collaborated with Splunk to solve this dilemma by conceptualising and developing an innovative and differentiated gamified content experience themed around ‘secret agents.’ The goal was to achieve a minimum 25% boost to community engagement with content aligned to Splunk’s three main product suites: platform, security and observability.Branded ‘Mission Possible: Splunk Adoption Challenge’ this innovative, gamified digital experience solution monitored engagement with Splunk’s content in real-time, serving valuable behavioural insights that demonstrated a 47% increase in engagement v.s. previous campaigns.
Silver: ‘The NextWave Elevator Challenge’ for EY, by Ogilvy UK
Having a brand ambition is one thing, but getting employees to embrace, understand, and act on it is another. EY’s bold ambition and strategy, “NextWave,” could only be achieved if the entire company played their part. While awareness and commitment were high, employees weren’t clear on their role in delivering the ambition and how it would affect their day-to-day lives.To bridge this gap, Ogilvy UK had to make NextWave personally relevant. Corporate engagement initiatives can be uninspiring, resulting in limited engagement, ineffective messaging, and failure to adopt desired behaviours. The agency looked for different ways to engage, tapping into the desire to play.The strategy was to co-create a gamified team experience, maximising impact across culture and skill sets. Ogilvy UK connected NextWave with its audience by offering competition and rewarding achievement. Employees wanted something innovative, fun, team-based, and playable anywhere due to the ongoing Covid pandemic. Part of a phased roll out, so far 80,000 people have taken part in 10,000 teams, 12 languages, across 22 regions and global functions.Feedback scored exceptionally, over 4/5 across all three key metrics. Employees were inspired, understanding was enhanced and they knew what they needed to do to make NextWave a success.
Bronze: ‘Suspecting Cushing’s’ for Stein IAS, by Dechra
‘‘Suspecting Cushing’s’ was created to increase understanding of Cushing’s syndrome – a lifelong canine illness – and let vets know that Dechra’s Vetoryl is the best option for treatment.Dechra developed a humorous online video series, featuring detectives on a mission to investigate the prime suspects (symptoms) of Cushing’s, using noir-style interrogations between human and dog actors to help explain each symptom.The campaign’s creativity stood out in the veterinary world, resulting in over 50,000 dogs being treated for Cushing’s.
Category 7: Best use of social media including influencer marketing
Gold: ‘When You Don’t Use ABAX’ for ABAX, by The Croc
How do you boost demand for a brand that nobody in the UK has heard of, and whose audience – builders – hate advertising? Simply, you don’t advertise to them, you bring them the personalities they love, on the platforms they love. Equipment tracking firm ABAX helps construction firms prevent theft. But hard to reach and harder to impress, how could The Croc connect with the UK’s builders?Ironically, the best way to get a builder to take something seriously is by making them laugh. The hero stunt in the series, hosted by construction influencer Ryan Belcher, sees a builder lose their entire inventory overnight. Then, the next day, mid-meltdown, all the drama is resolved by ABAX, which instantly locates the equipment via GPS.
Silver: ‘The Redgate 100: A Top 100 Influencers Index’ by Redgate
‘The Redgate 100’ campaign centres around a social index list of industry influencers. The objectives of the campaign were to expand the awareness and credibility of Redgate as a market leader among users of database management tools that were not already familiar with us. Redgate did so by creating a top 100 list that showcases a lineup of experts who are active and popular online.The list was divided into 10 subcategories that align with the areas the agency wishes to be known for as an organisation as well as ‘Ones to Watch’ and ‘Community Heroes’. Through the list, Redgate was able to reach the members’ social media followers (a combined 1.3 million+) and expand awareness to new audiences across the globe – the list featured people from 17 countries and from every continent. As creators of the list, Redgate also positioned itself as credible experts in the field and achieved PR coverage and backlinks from 40 relevant sites.Notably, 47% of The Redgate 100 are from underrepresented groups like women, people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, and those with disabilities.
Bronze: ‘Hubbub: Creative That Distracts’ for Transmission and LinkedIn, by Transmission
B2B has a bad reputation when it comes to creativity. As the platform that’s become synonymous with B2B marketing, LinkedIn found itself painted with the same broad brushstroke.In a push for greater creativity in how B2B marketers used its platform and to encourage more creative thinking in B2B, Transmission won a pitch among LinkedIn’s Marketing Partners to create a resource that could provide best practice guidance for its marketing solutions and expert commentary on B2B creativity.The solution? Hubbub. A standalone content and creative hub packed with how-to guides, thought leadership, and platform toolkits designed to give marketers everything they need to produce stand-out creative content on LinkedIn.Each content piece benefitted from the subject matter experts’ insights and commentary on B2B creativity, content, and LinkedIn’s marketing solutions. And to bring the campaign to life, the agency leveraged Transmission’s extensive full-service expertise to ensure each piece was seen by the right persona, at the right time, on the right channel.The result? A wealth of assets wrapped in eye-catching creative supported by a brand-to-demand campaign. The programme smashed benchmarks and performance predictions – paving the way for an expansive second phase and the deepening of a LinkedIn partnership globally.
Category 8: Best use of content marketing
Gold: ‘What on Earth is the value of space?’ for Inmarsat, by Ogilvy
British satellite communications (satcom) company Inmarsat operates a constellation of geostationary satellites that beam data to industries all over the world. Industries that underpin everyday terrestrial life; airlines, logistics companies, utilities, and governments. It’s a sector recently disrupted by the new tech billionaires arriving from consumer industries.Very quickly, Inmarsat was being categorised as ‘Old Space’ in the new space race. Inmarsat needed to re-establish its influence by tackling topics of real significance. And at the same time, remind businesses why Inmarsat was the right choice. Its strategy was to generate interest that would reverberate beyond Inmarsat’s traditional audience, driven by their guiding belief that space is a place for everyone.The campaign execution had two parts: Firstly, doing something most B2B businesses don’t (or can’t) do – go direct to the public to build awareness. Secondly, harnessing that opinion to create a platform so Inmarsat could act as an ambassador for the space sector – drawing attention to the havoc occurring in orbit, and encouraging satcom customers to rethink the value of space.By the time Ogilvy was finished, headlines were splashed across front pages worldwide and set the agenda at COP 27.
Silver: ‘Getting to grips with the new Building Regs’ for Jewson, by Tangerine
When new building regulations were set to drop in June 2022, Tangerine and client Jewson spotted an opportunity to get ahead of the game and find out what tradespeople really needed to know, distil the long-winded jargon into the meaningful stuff for different trades, and put it in front of customers exactly when they needed it.This strategy paid off. More than 15,000 people downloaded the brand’s digestible, digital guide within the six-week campaign period, website dwell time increased from 40 seconds to over five minutes, and the builders merchant earned its reputation as a straight-talking source of knowledge for the trade.
Silver: ‘Accounts Deceivable’ for Medius, by Fight or Flight
Finance professionals underestimate the scale of financial fraud. This was a challenge for Medius, a B2B provider of anti-fraud software.The solution? Tell a hard-hitting, moving story that was impossible to forget.Fight or Flight created Accounts Deceivable, a true-crime podcast, which examined the human cost of financial fraud. Persuading both victims and fraudsters to participate was a coup for the show – typically neither are comfortable talking on the record.The podcast was a major hit thanks to smart storytelling and an agile social strategy that drove thousands of downloads. Accounts Deceivable ultimately reached the top 150 business podcasts, an astonishing achievement for a niche B2B brand.The campaign’s stellar media coverage (tier 1 nationals and trade media) not only boosted traffic but helped to tell an important story about white collar crime at a time when life is becoming unaffordable – and fraud more enticing.
Bronze: ‘Suspecting Cushing’s’ for Stein IAS, by Dechra
‘Suspecting Cushing’s’ was created to increase understanding of Cushing’s syndrome – a lifelong canine illness – and let vets know that Dechra’s Vetoryl is the best option for treatment.Dechra developed a humorous online video series, featuring detectives on a mission to investigate the prime suspects (symptoms) of Cushing’s, using noir-style interrogations between human and dog actors to help explain each symptom.The campaign’s creativity stood out in the veterinary world, resulting in over 50,000 dogs being treated for Cushing’s.
Category 9: Best use of customer insight
Gold: ‘Proven Meets Pioneering’ for Allianz Partners, by Seeblue
Allianz Partners, global leaders in health, life & disability insurance and health services were seeing the value of their large customer renewals decline year over year. They were also failing to capture their fair share of new enterprise acquisitions. Evidence showed they were failing to articulate their full value to business customers and especially to large strategic accounts. They were not customer-centric in how they addressed business issues beyond simply providing health insurance cover for their employees. Applying a 360° insight model, Seeblue fundamentally changed thinking within Allianz Partners global sales and marketing teams. The programme has an ROI of 598:1 having overachieved on strategic account targets (3 wins vs target of 1). It has elevated the perception of marketing within Allianz Partners, where Proven Meets Pioneering is central to growth.
Silver: ‘Decarbonisation Delivered’ by Mitie
Decarbonisation, Delivered is the next step in Mitie’s strategy to decarbonise the places where Britain works. Decarbonisation Delivered supports customers, suppliers, and the wider industry, in achieving critical net zero targets with the support of end-to-end decarbonisation services.The key objectives were to position Mitie as the first choice for end-to-end decarbonisation solutions, increase sustainability perception and brand awareness, provide a clear point of differentiation for Mitie in the market and simplify the proposition – with a summary of what it offers customers and how they align to their decarbonisation outcomes. Mitie used customer insight to develop a simple decarbonisation offering that would help our customers and the wider industry achieve ambitious net zero targets.There were over 13,000 views and 593,000 impressions as well as at least 10 new potential opportunities and several consultations with prospective customers booked from the VIP breakfast briefing focussed on the Navigator content.
Bronze: ‘Customer First: Transforming Experian’s marketing approach’ for Experian UK, by Coterie Marketing
Experian’s aim is to be customer centric: to be known for the right things with the right people. Yet, the marketing strategy didn’t align, confusing customers with different business areas talking to similar audiences about hundreds of products. And while they are known for credit offerings, the compliance and fraud line was found to be relatively unknown. There was a strategic opportunity to increase awareness; the challenge lay in identifying the key audience, and how to engage them.This is where Coterie, an award-winning agency specialising in persona-led marketing, stepped in. Coterie helped marketing and sales align, moving to an audience-driven approach with engagement at its heart. To do this, Coterie worked closely with Experian to create a ‘customer first’ framework, segmenting its target audiences, exploring the real pain points and priorities of their target audience, and linking these to the Experian products.This framework was applied to a highly focused 12-week campaign, targeting the key fraud and risk persona identified. As a result of the insights, the tactics, creative and messaging were highly targeted and applied with innovation. This was reflected in the results, unlocking the true potential of the opportunity with a huge uplift of engagement and pipeline.
Highly Commended: ‘Diageo Draught Cocktails’ for Diageo Draught Cocktails, by Serendipity2
Diageo, the global leader in premium alcoholic drinks, has an unrivalled portfolio across spirits and beer. It has a long-term vision to revolutionise how it sources, stores and uses data to fully exploit the total alcoholic drinks opportunity at a national, regional, local and individual outlet level. With this clear vision, Diageo wanted to adopt an informed approach to its go-to-market strategy and execution for its new draught cocktails proposition.To achieve this, using a variety of data sources Serendipity2 developed brand personas for Diageo’s technology-led draught cocktails equipment. This was then planned and executed in MarketView, Serendipity2’s Google mapping and data analysis system, to formulate the go-to-market strategy and drive sales at household level through distribution partners.MarketView offers the ability to view and analyse data at both a macro and a micro level, meaning that sales and marketing activities can be implemented in a highly targeted and localised way. From product ranging, pricing, store promotions, merchandising, POS and media planning to digital and social campaigns, outdoor advertising, store location planning and customer and store segmentation.The resulting rollout of the distribution points has outstripped demand, resulting in a high profile ramp up of equipment distribution for the product.
Category 10: Best use of AI
Gold: ‘BenAI’ by Bidwells
Few investments yield a 6,186% ROI. Even fewer marketing initiatives can claim such impact. Yet, that’s precisely what Bidwells’ inaugural AI Content Creation initiative achieved, offering a first look at generative AI’s true potential within the firm.Seizing the moment when ChatGPT launched the Generative AI era, Bidwells swiftly revamped content processes in January 2023. The aim? To bolster team capacity and adapt to a tightening real estate market. The agency brought all content in-house and devised a six-step strategy to integrate generative AI into the content workflows, accelerate low-value content delivery and allocate resources to high-value projectsWith a modest £3,023 investment in time and three AI tools, Bidwells saved 48 team days, galvanising the business and spearheading its latest transformative wave.
Silver: ‘Huble Digital & GfK – Human vs AI: Can ChatGPT outsmart a CMO?’ for GfK, by Huble Digital
The objective was to launch a global broad-scale brand awareness campaign to drive awareness of the bold and innovative side of the GfK brand, with the key metric being impressions for the landing page gfk.com/AI.Impressions were projected to be five million. The campaign surpassed expectations by nearly two million impressions. The estimated impressions were projected to be five million, but the final count reached an impressive 6.87 million.The campaign leveraged the topical nature of AI and particularly ChatGPT to create an impactful campaign that highlighted GfK’s position as a thought leader in its industry in a fun and engaging manner, and using a format that hadn’t been done before.
Bronze: ‘My Professional Rewards’ for Unilever Food Solutions, by Omne
For Unilever Food Solutions, the use of AI has been a game-changer. My Professional Rewards is the new version of an established loyalty programme, but the new app uses AI to overcome a key problem within the old scheme.Unilever wants to reward catering operators for buying its products, but they can be buying those brands from hundreds of different wholesalers. As such, with the old scheme, Omne had to receive data feeds in different formats from over 200 wholesalers to allocate points into caterers’ accounts. Costly, sometimes inaccurate, and not ‘instant’ for the caterer.The AI functionality in the new ‘My Professional Rewards’ App put the onus on the catering operator instead.Using the new app, they simply scan their invoices using the camera on their phones. All text is recognised but… the clever bit is that the AI recognises only Unilever products and allocates points to them – ignoring every other brand on the caterer’s invoices.It’s an extraordinary change and one that means Unilever can really widen its target audience and the brands featured in the scheme. For example, My Professional Rewards is now also open to convenience retailers and the Unilever Ice Cream portfolio.
Category 11: Best use of thought leadership
Gold: ‘What on Earth is the value of space?’ for Inmarsat, by Ogilvy
British satellite communications (satcom) company Inmarsat operates a constellation of geostationary satellites that beam data to industries all over the world. Industries that underpin everyday terrestrial life; airlines, logistics companies, utilities, and governments. It’s a sector recently disrupted by the new tech billionaires arriving from consumer industries.Very quickly, Inmarsat was being categorised as ‘Old Space’ in the new space race. Inmarsat needed to re-establish its influence by tackling topics of real significance. And at the same time, remind businesses why Inmarsat was the right choice. Its strategy was to generate interest that would reverberate beyond Inmarsat’s traditional audience, driven by their guiding belief that space is a place for everyone.The campaign execution had two parts: Firstly, doing something most B2B businesses don’t (or can’t) do – go direct to the public to build awareness. Secondly, harnessing that opinion to create a platform so Inmarsat could act as an ambassador for the space sector – drawing attention to the havoc occurring in orbit, and encouraging satcom customers to rethink the value of space.By the time Ogilvy was finished, headlines were splashed across front pages worldwide and set the agenda at COP 27.
Silver: ‘Aquanomics: The economics of water risk and future resiliency’ for GHD, by Man Bites Dog
Man Bites Dog (MBD) identified clear blue space for a client GHD to lead the global conversation on the vitally important but neglected agenda of water security.The pioneering thought leadership campaign ‘Aquanomics: The Economics of Water Risk and Future Resiliency’ put the challenge of water risk high on the business and government agenda by quantifying the economic impact of water risk and positioned GHD as experts in the solution: water resilience.The study projected, for the first time, the economic impact of future water risk at a country and sector level, covering 10 geographies across GHD’s footprint, representing a diverse range of climates. It revealed that droughts, floods and storms could wipe $5.6 trillion from global GDP between 2022 and 2050.By demonstrating the financial impact of water risk, MBD created a powerful business case for early investment in water resilience.As GHD’s first truly global thought leadership campaign, Aquanomics transformed GHD’s profile and provided the blueprint for future marketing campaigns. The world-first research empowered GHD to share its message at the UN’s Conference of Parties (COP) for the first time, with GHD using the research as the basis for presentations and roundtable discussions exploring water risk at COP27.
Bronze: ‘PERFECT HARMONY’ by Addleshaw Goddard
In what is quite possibly a B2B marketing first, law firm Addleshaw Goddard turned traditional tactics on their head by launching the first ever legal thought leadership campaign recorded in a music studio. Interviewing over 110 business leaders at large companies, the firm uncovered more than a dozen practical, human-centric insights into how company legal teams can add even more strategic value to their Boards and Executive teams. Pivotally, it revealed that companies report far better harmony when a General Counsel (GC) is involved in strategic projects. And Addleshaw Goddard brought that core finding to life in an utterly unique and evocative way…The firm invited musicians to record songs inspired by the research. But there was a twist… With the G & C notes removed from the music, the songs sounded terrible and lost their meaning – dramatically underlining that ‘everything is better with the GC.’ That distinctive approach to thought leadership struck a chord with business leaders, earning thousands of content views, driving contact with hundreds of senior businesspeople, and earning immediate new work. The resultant insights proved to be valuable for the successful delivery of the ‘Perfect Harmony’ campaign.
Category 12: Best brand initiative
Gold: ‘Real. World. Change.’ for Edge Empower, by Gravity Global
EDGE Strategy is a purpose-led, international DE&I business looking to raise the awareness of its software based solution in a competitive space. To achieve the cut-through required, Gravity Global created a new brand, with a powerful call to action to deliver Real. World. Change. To support the brand, Gravity Global devised a new creative route, and a comprehensive go to market strategy using the fame, admiration and belief (F.A.B) methodology, focusing on building brand fame to drive global brand awareness, admiration to maintain front of mind awareness and belief in the value to be gained from becoming an EDGE customer and ultimately becoming an EDGE Certified organisation. The results of this campaign have been extraordinary, achieving 123% increase in positive media coverage YoY, a 300% increase in brand engagement, 70% increase in brand sentiment, and a three-fold increase in follower base and engagement on social channels. Gravity Global also brokered an agreement with Billie Jean King (the tennis superstar and Global DE&I Advocate) as an EDGE ambassador, helping elevate EDGE and its founder Aniela Unguresan on a global stage where she is now heralded as a recognised Forbes Influencer.
Silver: ‘Seek & Prosper’ for S&P Global, by JOAN Creative
After a groundbreaking merger with IHS Markit in 2022, S&P Global created a multichannel campaign to galvanise the brand’s purpose, share its expanded offerings, and re-introduce itself to the world.To maximise its impact, the campaign targets key decision-makers and business leaders, approaching them as visionaries, to inspire them to create the change they want to see in the world. The campaign was born from one core creative concept: Seeing is simple, but to really push progress forward you must do more than see. You must seek.This key insight inspired the platform line “Seek & Prosper,” which JOAN Creative transformed into an emotional rallying cry, inspiring decision-makers and visionaries to seek more than the ordinary. To look beneath the surface and beyond the horizon. Reminding them, “A better, more prosperous future awaits. It’s yours for the seeking.”The idea opened the door to new worlds, taking audiences beyond the boardroom and into metaphorical adventures. From the depth of the ocean to dark caves to the open skies, every piece of work within the Seek & Prosper campaign is centred around a visionary and infused with the spirit of curiosity and exploration established by the core concept.
Bronze: ‘Best in the Business’ for Knorr Professional, by Omne
With over 180 years of heritage, Knorr has always been at the heart of kitchens. But in recent years, Knorr Professional Bouillons have experienced market share decline, as hospitality businesses look to cut costs with cheaper own label alternatives in a category that’s often considered to be commoditised.To mitigate this, Omne created Knorr Professional’s biggest Bouillons campaign in over a decade. The agency wanted to remind the hospitality industry why Knorr Professional is the go-to brand for bouillons, for them to see value in being loyal to Knorr and to feel confident in their choice for their team, their menu and their business.The campaign proposition ‘Best in the Business’ was embodied by the desire to work withthe best in the business. Omne recruited chef Tom Kerridge as the ‘Creative Director’ for Knorr Professional’s Bouillons range, to bring to life what Bouillons can do for chefs in a new way. From providing inspiration to skills training, tips and advice on how to get more from their bouillon, Omne created a content programme and training hub for chefs that truly adds value to, and addresses the challenges of, professional kitchens in 2023.
Highly Commended: ‘Tyk Goes Bigger, Bolder’ by Tyk
Tyk was undertaking a transformative rebrand campaign with multifaceted objectives. The first objective was to establish Tyk as the paramount player in API management, akin to how Stripe dominates payment processing and Snowflake in data management. Tyk aspired to be not just celebrated for its top-tier product, but also recognised as an exemplary remote-first employer.The second objective was to uphold Tyk’s distinctive character: it aims to be perceived as reliable, inventive, and authoritative without losing its signature quirky and affable persona. This involved maintaining a forthright and honest communication style, reflecting the philosophy: “we take engineering seriously, but not ourselves”.Lastly, Tyk was striving to adapt its web presence to resonate with its three new ideal customer profiles, thereby enhancing deal acquisitions that are compatible with its fresh API-centric product growth ICP.In essence, Tyk’s rebranding campaign was an ambitious endeavour to burgeon into a tech giant in API management, while preserving its human touch and realigning its brand to cater to evolving customer profiles.
Category 13: Best purpose-led marketing programme
Gold: ‘Best purpose-led marketing programme: MHUK partnership’ by Lloyds Bank
Lloyds Bank prides itself on providing support and guidance for businesses of every shape and size, helping them to build sustainable financial resilience. And after the struggles of coping with the COVID-19 pandemic followed by the cost of living crisis, this backing became more vital than ever. However, it was keen to look beyond financial help by doing something positive to ease the relentless pressures on small business owners’ mental health. Further underscoring the campaign’s resounding success, all 1,040 available therapeutic coaching sessions were swiftly snapped up, attesting to the imperative need and resonating impact of the campaign’s outreach efforts.
Silver: ‘What on Earth is the value of space?’ for Inmarsat, by Ogilvy
British satellite communications (satcom) company Inmarsat operates a constellation of geostationary satellites that beam data to industries all over the world. Industries that underpin everyday terrestrial life; airlines, logistics companies, utilities, and governments. It’s a sector recently disrupted by the new tech billionaires arriving from consumer industries.Very quickly, Inmarsat was being categorised as ‘Old Space’ in the new space race. Inmarsat needed to re-establish its influence by tackling topics of real significance. And at the same time, remind businesses why Inmarsat was the right choice. Its strategy was to generate interest that would reverberate beyond Inmarsat’s traditional audience, driven by their guiding belief that space is a place for everyone.The campaign execution had two parts: Firstly, doing something most B2B businesses don’t (or can’t) do – go direct to the public to build awareness. Secondly, harnessing that opinion to create a platform so Inmarsat could act as an ambassador for the space sector – drawing attention to the havoc occurring in orbit, and encouraging satcom customers to rethink the value of space.By the time Ogilvy was finished, headlines were splashed across front pages worldwide and set the agenda at COP 27.
Bronze: ‘Streets Ahead’ for McCain Foodservice Solutions, by Omne
McCain Foodservice Solutions witnessed along with the rest of the world a knock to the world of food service and hospitality in 2020.These events set McCain on a mission to support the sector with a connected social enterprise initiative. The McCain Streets Ahead programme created real opportunities in cohorts that find themselves marginalised or far removed from entrepreneurship. Working alongside the UK’s leading Street Food incubator, KERB, the Streets Ahead aim was to train and mentor less advantaged people so they can turn their lives around through street food. The McCain Streets Ahead Programme is a national initiative that funds training for those who have a passion and ambition to get into Street Food and are in genuine need of support.Together with KERB, the McCain Streets Ahead programme provided free online training, access to a KERB immersion day at their flagship food hall in Seven Dials, London, and a chance to benefit from a kick-start business investment to help them start their very own street food business. In its first year, over 140 individuals were recruited into the programme.
Category 14: Best demand or lead generation campaign
Gold: ‘FISH & CHIPMUNKS’ by Addleshaw Goddard
Addressing the growing market demand for freelance lawyers, but facing multiple competitors, law firm Addleshaw Goddard ran a highly creative campaign that showcased how it perfectly matches legal freelancers and legal clients. In a category perhaps not famous for humorous communications, the firm ran an unmissable social media campaign that dramatised how relationships that are almost right are 100% wrong. High impact, creative visuals featuring ‘Fish & Chipmunks,’ ‘Mac & Trees,’ ‘Burger & Flies’ and more all cut through and resonated.Utterly distinctive from industry norms, and for only a modest budget, the campaign attracted significant market interest, contributed to an immediate spike in new work, and has so far achieved a return on marketing investment of 1226%.
Silver: ‘Ready’ to outperform’ for Allianz AGCS, by Earnest
The Ready campaign for Allianz AGCS wasn’t just a high performing, full funnel campaign, it was a campaign that was a first of its kind for the business, requiring intense stakeholder discussions to get business buy-in and internal traction.The campaign has proved to a fundamentally traditional business based on relationship sales and face to face networking, that digital marketing is a critical growth driver for today’s modern B2B insurer. It’s delivering a hugely positive impact to the business, its employees, and of course revenues. Above all, the value of marketing is now beyond doubt, and the marketing teams across the business have a new found confidence and sophistication of approach.All forecasts for performance have been exceeded while highlights include 22m impressions, 69k traffic to the campaign site, 85% reach of target accounts and over 140 leads from top tier clients and brokers. The campaign also played an important role in securing 11% growth in premium renewals & over 126% growth in operating profit.
Bronze: ‘Balance’ for GE Digital, by Ledger Bennett
GE Digital had a compelling story to tell about a leading global issue – the energy transition – and how their digital technology accelerates progress. But they needed to stand out from a crowd of greenwashing messages and uninspiring technology visuals. Ledger Bennett established a creative vision that is unique, believable, and resonant with their audience in the power generation and oil and gas industries.Ledger Bennett built a strategic foundation based on audience insights, trend analysis, and competitor research to get to the essence of GE Digital’s story and find the white space in the market. The agency knew the energy industry faced a trilemma of meeting sustainability, economic and reliability goals amid ever-growing energy demand. Successful organisations needed to balance these priorities.The concept began with the central theme of balance. It depicted various dichotomies that needed to be balanced with witty headlines and visuals presented as two halves of a circle, echoing GE’s iconic circular monogram. The balance creative extended across paid social, Google display, landing pages, customer presentations, and event visuals. With an identity unlike anything prevalent in the energy industry, Ledger Bennett helped the business increase pipeline by 48% and achieve a 94% conversion rate from SAL to SQL.
Category 15: Best use of account-based marketing (ABM)
Gold: ‘Time is of the essence: bringing a data breach to life’ for Kyndryl, by Purple Agency
How do you convince an audience of senior leaders that Kyndryl’s cyber-resilience services could be the critical factor in their business’ ability to recover from a data breach? By letting them come to the conclusion themselves. The Purple Agency used the principle of ‘show, don’t tell’ to develop a customised interactive simulation of a high-profile data breach. We took an account-based approach, focusing on 11 C-level execs from one of Kyndryl’s key accounts (a famous high-street retailer). The simulation involved facilitator-led challenges, realistic video calls, media reports, and social media storms. Attendees had to make crucial decisions against the clock, to save their company from reputational and financial damage. The escape-room-style event, run by Kyndryl experts, drove home the value of having strong security and resilience procedures. It also resulted in a post-event report to add a practical edge to the educational session. The simulation repositioned Kyndryl in the eyes of the client – elevating its status to that of a strategic advisor. In turn, this paved the way for Kyndryl to reinforce the relationship, build a pipeline and grow an important account. The event has also provided Kyndryl with a template for future, impactful marketing activities.
Silver: ‘How to Win Funds and Influence Pipeline’ by NTT Ltd
This is not the story of the shiny execution of a single ABM programme in isolation. This is so much bigger than that. This entry is a story of marketing transformation for NTT – one of the world’s biggest IT infrastructure and services companies – and how it built a world class ABM function on scalable foundations to address notorious ABM challenges and, ultimately, fuel growth. Geeky? Maybe. Impactful? Definitely.NTT Ltd had a reputation problem among its biggest customers and prospect accounts. With proven success in the IT infrastructure and services sector, it was often disregarded as a ‘tech only’ business among key buyers. It had to establish meaningful relationships and preference across new buying centres, becoming recognised as a world class partner for implementing high-value managed services.To be successful, NTT first had to look at the way it was structured and build the right, scalable ABM foundations from which to launch impactful programmes.By running a blended model of 18 x 1:1 and 6 x 1:few ABM programmes the ABM function has opened-up 500+ new relationships with strategic buyers at key accounts.
Bronze: ‘Lighter Deliveries’ for Royal Mail, by The Creative Consultancy
Royal Mail is the UK’s greenest delivery partner due to mostly on-foot deliveries. They wanted to share this message to open doors with C-Suite/Director-level decision makers in 10 large retail businesses that had been previously unresponsive to their sales team.To get cut-through with the senior audience, The Creative Consultancy created an ABM direct mail piece, bespoke to each brand. The company developed a box within a box, hand-delivered by dancing posties. The larger box was 60cm3: the equivalent volume of CO2 produced in a delivery with another carrier, and suspended inside was a box half the size to showcase the 50% less CO2 produced by a Royal Mail delivery.Each box was designed using each brands’ look and feel and written with their own tone of voice, focusing on the commonality between the brands’ ethos and sustainability, and Royal Mail’s. QR codes directed to landing pages featuring interviews with each brands’ own shoppers, talking about the importance of sustainability and green delivery. Royal Mail have now had contact with nine of the 10 brands and booked meetings with several.
Category 16: Best channel marketing initiative
Gold: ‘Marginal Gains’ for Westcoast, by Revere
With a declining device market to contend with and economic uncertainty, Westcoast set a strategic initiative for sales and marketing teams to focus on making device sales richer by adding services to each device sale.To support this growth objective, Westcoast partnered with Revere to lead a ‘Marginal Gains’ strategy across all device marketing for 2022.Marginal Gains ensured all partner marketing development funds were maximised to support business goals. From hero campaigns for Microsoft to smaller campaigns for device accessories vendors – everything was part of one connect strategy.For this entry, Revere focused on one hero programme, Device Solutions Club (DSC), due to its contribution towards the business objective.The programme started with audience research, aligning with sales, to unearth insights on Westcoast’s current device resellers. This resulted into a two-pronged campaign, a hero 1-to-few campaign focusing on 20 partners who showed most growth potential – the exclusive `Device Solutions Club’. There was also a breadth, 1-to-many campaign which targeted all other device partners ensuring opportunities were missed. Business results showed GP reached 3.3% which was above target.
Silver: ‘Broaden your horizons’ for Lenovo, by Twogether
Lenovo has a bold new vision: to deliver “Smarter technology for all”, reflecting its commitment to delivering technology that improves human outcomes.With 96% of business conducted through its channel, ‘Lenovo 360’ was launched as a partner programme enabling them to sell end-to-end outcome-based solutions.However, its channel still perceived Lenovo as the “hardware business”. They required a campaign to change partners’ attitudes, behaviours, and outcomes – and fast.‘Broaden your horizons’ was a call to arms to embrace new market opportunities. A wake-up call, an incentive, and a promise that communicated the ‘power’ partners have within their grasp when using Lenovo 360.The strategic approach engaged and educated partners through a multi-faceted, international campaign. It incentivised revenue growth, leveraging Lenovo’s partnership with F1 to gamify sales and reward training via ‘Racetracks’ and ‘Spin to win’. In just six months, the campaign generated multi-millions in claimed revenue.
Bronze: ‘Lenovo Len’ for Westcoast, by Revere
With a declining device market to contend with and economic uncertainty, Westcoast set an ambitious objective for growth profit to reach 3% across their wholesale division. Marketing needed a connected strategy that aligned with sales, as they aggressively looked to increase the revenue and volume of each device order.Westcoast partnered with Revere to lead the strategic plans for their vendor campaigns – ensuring all partner marketing development funds (MDF) were maximised. For this entry, Revere focused on one of the hero vendor campaigns, ‘Lenovo Len’, due to its contribution towards the business objective.With attention spans shortening, a strong brand personality can be pivotal in creating a memorable audience experience. Lenovo Len, was born to make an impact in a saturated channel ecosystem. Personifying Lenovo’s messages to encourage device sales, Len’s immediate success is still going strong – it’s a well-known character for Westcoast’s reseller customers.The objectives were to grow revenue by 50% with engaged accounts and increase volume by 40% with engaged accounts. Results showed a focus on SKU QonQ with revenue up 407% and sales volume up 268% during tier 1, and a 362% increase in revenue and 654% increase in sales volume in tier 2.
Category 17: Best sales enablement initiative
Gold: ‘Unleashing untapped data potential’ for Neo4j, by Digital Radish
This was a dynamic sales enablement initiative that unlocked untapped buy-in from some of the world’s biggest organisations and approximately $7million in pipeline revenue – by proving the true power of what they already had. Neo4j is the world’s graph database technology provider, fighting fraud and spotting intricate data patterns for global giants.But though these huge organisations were only using Neo4j for a single small use case, its technology is capable of so much more. The opportunity was there for sales to grow revenue among these leading businesses, expanding cases within existing teams and across new business areas. To unlock these opportunities, sales required deep strategic resources to identify customers’ decision-making units and team structures and uncover individual customer challenges to focus on when selling.The resulting 1:1 campaign encouraged carefully selected targets to ‘Shape their data into something greater’, communicating a highly complex offering with crystal clarity. Plus, a bespoke content library for each customer that sales leads leveraged to win new admirers within eight of their top accounts. With more than 200 new contacts added to the database and 30 new contacts attending in-person customer events, this was a campaign that truly broadened horizons.
Silver: ‘Champion the experts’ for ASUS Business, by Earnest
Asus Business wanted to launch a new expert series to the business market globally. They needed a campaign that could be embraced and leveraged by field marketing teams across the world.A critical aspect of this was the campaign playbook. This central piece of sales and marketing enablement was designed to create a ready-to-go, easy-to-use toolkit for activation: marketing teams could get the campaign out there, and sales teams could carry the message to channel partners and direct customers.Most campaigns delivered by central teams struggle to get traction from regional/field marketing teams globally. This foundational sales enablement platform solved this challenge. Results showed over 170m video views, 1.5m clicks, 993 leads and an average 160% increase in website traffic.
Bronze: ‘SWIM, DON’T SINK!’ by Addleshaw Goddard
In response to our legal clients telling us they were “drowning in contracts,” law firm Addleshaw Goddard decided to act. It knew that it could help companies find practical ways to reduce time, money, and energy lost on contract management. And so it decided to contribute to the contract management conversation, providing practical solutions in a way that matched the firm’s commitment to delivering imagination and impact to client relationships.It launched the most distinctive client tools and communications in the contract management category, providing nautically-inspired insights to help clients ‘swim rather than sink’ in a sea of contracts. The Bermuda Triangle of lost effort and efficiency, yachts gliding through contracts, and contract lifebuoys all featured, and the client-centric approach stood out. Working to a modest budget, over 700 business contacts engaged with the content, leading to significant new projects with major organisations, and delivering a healthy return on marketing investment within months.
Category 18: Best limited-budget campaign
Gold: ‘KP Nuts – Raising Awareness of Testicular Cancer Awareness Month among Retailers’ for KP Snacks, by Another Word Communications
In April 2023, KP Snacks unveiled its first-ever retailer video campaign to raise awareness of Testicular Cancer Awareness Month in a fun and light-hearted way, encouraging retailers to ‘check their nuts’. This coincided with the production of limited-edition packs where 10p was donated from every pack sold, to deliver a total donation of £50,000 for the charity Movember.Word of mouth is hugely important and influential amongst retailers, so with only a limited budget, Another Word Communications chose to use this to create a shareable, memorable and impactful campaign. Using real retailers as the ‘actors’, the campaign was developed to connect with other retailers to make a real difference and remove the stigma attached to talking about testicular cancer.News-led editorial features and social activity helped drive awareness of Testicular Cancer Awareness Month and KP’s support of the Movember foundation, while demonstrating clear leadership with a creative and innovative approach.
Silver: ‘SWIM, DON’T SINK!’ by Addleshaw Goddard
In response to our legal clients telling us they were “drowning in contracts,” law firm Addleshaw Goddard decided to act. It knew that it could help companies find practical ways to reduce time, money, and energy lost on contract management. And so it decided to contribute to the contract management conversation, providing practical solutions in a way that matched the firm’s commitment to delivering imagination and impact to client relationships.It launched the most distinctive client tools and communications in the contract management category, providing nautically-inspired insights to help clients ‘swim rather than sink’ in a sea of contracts. The Bermuda Triangle of lost effort and efficiency, yachts gliding through contracts, and contract lifebuoys all featured, and the client-centric approach stood out. Working to a modest budget, over 700 business contacts engaged with the content, leading to significant new projects with major organisations, and delivering a healthy return on marketing investment within months.
Bronze: ‘Driving Customer Lifetime Value’ for Ledger Bennett, by American Express Global Business Travel
Amex Global Business Travel is a SaaS company that supports SMEs with corporate travel management. Despite plenty of customers signing up for their travel programme, Amex GBT only generated revenue when those sign-ups started using tools and services. And they were struggling to turn more of them into revenue-generating customers.To help drive adoption and engagement with Amex GBT’s travel products, Ledger Bennett needed to revamp existing content. This included developing new audience personas, revamping ‘Travel Info Hub’, designing a new onboarding welcome pack and optimising onboarding and tenure emails.Following this project, Amex GBT’s onboarded accounts are now three times more likely to activate — translating to more revenue-generating customers. The client also reported a 38% average email open rate, 94% customer profile completion during the onboarding phase, 100% customer satisfaction with the new welcome programme experience and 143% year-on-year revenue growth. The key to achieving these results on a limited budget was specificity.By aiming the content at a specific audience (existing Amex GBT customers) based on newly created personas, the agency was able to produce effective, highly tailored messaging that significantly boosted audience engagement.
Category 19: Best SME-targeted campaign
Gold: ‘ABM for high growth and new heights’ for Kelly Services, by Digital Radish
How do you launch an ambitious new staffing product, to the world’s fastest-growing businesses? You tap into the growing pains that only the most driven companies and unicorns can relate to.This ABM programme for KellyOCG, a pioneer in modern workforce solutions, used bold creative and humour to speak to the delicate tipping point these blossoming SMEs and mid-market businesses face as they strive to get the right level of structure and process into the hiring process without stifling their agility or innovation.Like the product itself, the 1:Many ABM engine was built for high growth and flexibility, moving accounts up and down the funnel with speed and ease. Rallying sales, marketing and dedicated SDRs, Digital Radish channelled the individual hunger into a shared vision, and created personal, meaningful ABM experiences for prospects at every stage.With more than 200 new contacts added to the database and 30 new contacts attending in-person customer events, this was a campaign that truly broadened horizons.
Silver: ‘Side Hustle Nation’ for Royal Mail, by Eulogy
How do you reposition Britain’s most recognised mail delivery service to become better known as a ‘modern parcels business’? The brief from Royal Mail asked just this. With such ingrained public perceptions of the Royal Mail brand as post offices and red boxes, the campaign response had to find a new driver for the British public to choose Royal Mail when sending parcels: the growing appetite for additional income streams beyond the day job. The Side Hustle Nation campaign employed a multichannel approach across earned media, broadcast and owned social channels to tell the story of Britain’s thriving entrepreneurial SME landscape, and the role sending parcels plays in it.
Bronze: ‘Don’t Bin It, Just Flex It: Getting SMEs to Reduce E-waste with Google’s ChromeOS Flex’ for Google ChromeOS, by Toaster
The ‘Don’t bin it, just flex it’ campaign for Chrome OS aimed to raise awareness and understanding of Google’s ChromeOS Flex among UK SMEs, targeting IT decision-makers. The objective was to drive the adoption of ChromeOS Flex for existing devices, addressing the issue of the UK’s growing e-waste problem.The campaign utilised a three-phase communication strategy, which started by establishing the UK’s e-waste problem and creating urgency through SME-targeted ads on LinkedIn and Facebook. ChromeOS Flex was then positioned as the solution, emphasising the benefits of device renewal. Finally, the campaign saw messaging around a compelling case study, direct mailers sent to 1,500 business leaders and a compelling partnership that engaged with SMEs at London’s SME-XPO event.The campaign stood out by addressing sustainability challenges faced by SMEs, encouraging them to embrace a greener tech strategy. It emphasised the message that success and sustainability go together, showcasing ChromeOS Flex as a cost-effective and eco-friendly solution.The campaign’s impact was measured based on metrics such as click-through rates, traffic uplift to the campaign landing page, leads acquired from the SME XPO event, and ultimately the number of ChromeOS Flex downloads. All results surpassed the initial benchmarks set.
Category 20: Best enterprise-targeted campaign
Gold: ‘Lighter Deliveries’ for Royal Mail, by The Creative Consultancy
Royal Mail is the UK’s greenest delivery partner due to mostly on-foot deliveries. They wanted to share this message to open doors with C-Suite/Director-level decision makers in 10 large retail businesses that had been previously unresponsive to their sales team.To get cut-through with the senior audience, The Creative Consultancy created an ABM direct mail piece, bespoke to each brand. The company developed a box within a box, hand-delivered by dancing posties. The larger box was 60cm3: the equivalent volume of CO2 produced in a delivery with another carrier, and suspended inside was a box half the size to showcase the 50% less CO2 produced by a Royal Mail delivery.Each box was designed using each brands’ look and feel and written with their own tone of voice, focusing on the commonality between the brands’ ethos and sustainability, and Royal Mail’s. QR codes directed to landing pages featuring interviews with each brands’ own shoppers, talking about the importance of sustainability and green delivery.
Silver: ‘PERFECT HARMONY’ by Addleshaw Goddard
In what is quite possibly a B2B marketing first, law firm Addleshaw Goddard turned traditional tactics on their head by launching the first ever legal thought leadership campaign recorded in a music studio. Interviewing over 110 business leaders at large companies, the firm uncovered more than a dozen practical, human-centric insights into how company legal teams can add even more strategic value to their Boards and Executive teams. Pivotally, it revealed that companies report far better harmony when a General Counsel (GC) is involved in strategic projects. And Addleshaw Goddard brought that core finding to life in an utterly unique and evocative way…The firm invited musicians to record songs inspired by the research. But there was a twist… With the G & C notes removed from the music, the songs sounded terrible and lost their meaning – dramatically underlining that ‘everything is better with the GC.’ That distinctive approach to thought leadership struck a chord with business leaders, earning thousands of content views, driving contact with hundreds of senior businesspeople, and earning immediate new work.The resultant insights proved to be valuable for the successful delivery of the ‘Perfect Harmony’ campaign.
Bronze: ‘Ready’ to outperform’ for Allianz AGCS, by Earnest
The Ready campaign for Allianz AGCS wasn’t just a high performing, full funnel campaign, it was a campaign that was a first of its kind for the business, requiring intense stakeholder discussions to get business buy-in and internal traction.The campaign has proved to a fundamentally traditional business based on relationship sales and face to face networking, that digital marketing is a critical growth driver for today’s modern B2B insurer. It’s delivering a hugely positive impact to the business, its employees, and of course revenues. Above all, the value of marketing is now beyond doubt, and the marketing teams across the business have a new found confidence and sophistication of approach.All forecasts for performance have been exceeded while highlights include 22m impressions, 69k traffic to the campaign site, 85% reach of target accounts and over 140 leads from top tier clients and brokers. The campaign also played an important role in securing 11% growth in premium renewals & over 126% growth in operating profit.
Highly Commended: ‘Time is of the essence: bringing a data breach to life’ for Kyndryl, by Purple Agency
How do you convince an audience of senior leaders that Kyndryl’s cyber-resilience services could be the critical factor in their business’ ability to recover from a data breach? By letting them come to the conclusion themselves. The Purple Agency used the principle of ‘show, don’t tell’ to develop a customised interactive simulation of a high-profile data breach. We took an account-based approach, focusing on 11 C-level execs from one of Kyndryl’s key accounts (a famous high-street retailer). The simulation involved facilitator-led challenges, realistic video calls, media reports, and social media storms. Attendees had to make crucial decisions against the clock, to save their company from reputational and financial damage. The escape-room-style event, run by Kyndryl experts, drove home the value of having strong security and resilience procedures. It also resulted in a post-event report to add a practical edge to the educational session. The simulation repositioned Kyndryl in the eyes of the client – elevating its status to that of a strategic advisor. In turn, this paved the way for Kyndryl to reinforce the relationship, build a pipeline and grow an important account. The event has also provided Kyndryl with a template for future, impactful marketing activities.
Category 21: Best employee engagement programme
Gold: ‘The NextWave Elevator Challenge’ for EY, by Ogilvy UK
Having a brand ambition is one thing, but getting employees to embrace, understand, and act on it is another. EY’s bold ambition and strategy, “NextWave,” could only be achieved if the entire company played their part. While awareness and commitment were high, employees weren’t clear on their role in delivering the ambition and how it would affect their day-to-day lives.To bridge this gap, Ogilvy UK had to make NextWave personally relevant. Corporate engagement initiatives can be uninspiring, resulting in limited engagement, ineffective messaging, and failure to adopt desired behaviours. The agency looked for different ways to engage, tapping into the desire to play.The strategy was to co-create a gamified team experience, maximising impact across culture and skill sets. Ogilvy UK connected NextWave with its audience by offering competition and rewarding achievement. Employees wanted something innovative, fun, team-based, and playable anywhere due to the ongoing Covid pandemic. Part of a phased roll out, so far 80,000 people have taken part in 10,000 teams, 12 languages, across 22 regions and global functions.Feedback scored exceptionally, over 4/5 across all three key metrics. Employees were inspired, understanding was enhanced and they knew what they needed to do to make NextWave a success.
Silver: ‘Building a World Where Nothing Goes to Waste’ for Viridor, by Bray Leino
Viridor is a resource recovery and recycling company operating across the UK. Previously owned by Pennon, the business was acquired by American global investment company KKR in 2020. The acquisition came partially through the KKR Global Impact Fund, cementing Viridor’s commitment to sustainable infrastructure growth. Following the development of an industry-leading ESG strategy, which came to define Viridor’s new brand purpose, the business needed to engage a diverse and dispersed workforce, to embed the new values and sustainability-centric culture. To do this, Bray Leino took Viridor’s new strategy on the road – to seed the values in the business, and launched the VIVA awards employee recognition scheme – to celebrate the people that live and breathe those values, creating ambassadors for the ambitious new brand.The aim: embed the new strategy, purpose, vision and values into a diverse workforce.The result? 100% of Viridor site locations were reached to communicate the new strategy at every level of the business. The VIVA awards revealed a marked increase in employee engagement, with a 60% increase in attendance between year one and two, due to the popularity of the programme and awards evening. And it’s only the beginning…
Bronze: ‘How driving employee engagement through an employer brand campaign helped The Smart Cube win the war for talent and stem attrition’ by The Smart Cube
Rapid business growth created a significant recruitment and retention challenge, pushing “Position The Smart Cube as a Great Place To Work” to the number one priority for Marketing in 2022. The Smart Cube needed to build its employer brand to a whole new level – and fast. The agency had to establish a brand message that employees could align behind, while simultaneously accelerating awareness in our target recruitment audiences.The Smart Cube designed a multi-channel strategy with the aim of engaging employees from the start, creating brand ambassadors to communicate messages internally and externally.A new collective employee persona, a range of branded merchandise, a series of internal events across geographies, and external activations through content and social media, came together to create a visually appealing campaign with touch points throughout the year hitting different employee audiences, and a regular drumbeat of messages reaching potential new recruits.Leveraging skills and capabilities across the marketing team – from design and copywriting to social and digital – The Smart Cube delivered a low cost, impactful campaign, which contributed to employee engagement, recruitment and retention. The agency engaged over 2⁄3 of employees throughout the campaign; supported the recruitment of 410 new joiners; and contributed to reducing attrition from 40% to 18%.
Category 22: Best international campaign
Gold: ‘Thrillingly predictable staffing’ for Kelly Services, by Digital Radish
A campaign that spanned 10 nations and eight languages, enthralling an international audience who’d grown weary of the twists, turns and surprises of recruitment.How? By referencing the universal world of film and TV to help HR leaders embrace the ‘thrillingly predictable’.As the constant demand for new TV series shows, the world loves drama. But for HR seeking temporary talent across the globe, nothing could be less true.They’re well versed in the dramatic – often having to hire hundreds of temp workers while dealing with 30+ temp agencies – so it’s no wonder they seek the predictability and transparency that Kelly’s volume hiring solution offers. Kelly needed to create a campaign that would reach across regions, highlighting these benefits in an engaging, original way.So, Digital Radish created ‘Thrillingly predictable recruitment’. Described by the client as ‘the most dramatic B2B campaign we’ve seen in the industry’, this series of high-octane TV ‘trailers’ did something totally different, juxtaposing the universally ‘thrilling’ style and form of TV dramas with the ‘predictable’ benefits that Kelly’s unique product offers.Built to easily translate and adapt, this international campaign has smashed targets, delivering 320,000+ impressions and £3 million in pipeline revenue so far.
Silver: ‘Payoneer: Own Tomorrow’ for Payoneer, by Gravity Global
Payoneer – an ambitious fintech business offering a global payment platform to digital commerce SMBs for sending and receiving international payments. The platform covers more countries than any other provider and makes the transactions easier than the competition. Payoneer also covers markets that other providers avoid because they are too difficult.The task was to raise brand awareness in some very challenging international markets and drive new business registrations. Previously, the business had never embarked on a brand campaign and solely focused on demand tactics. The brief from the client was to develop, launch and get a result before the end of the year giving the agency team just four months to show a return targeting an increase in brand awareness and 100% uplift in monthly lead volumes. This was no mean feat and required an army of people from the agency developing market insight, brand strategy development, creative, GTM, test the work in each region and launch in The Philippines, United Arab Emirates, Brazil and India.The business targeted a 15% uplift in new registrations and the campaign smashed the targets. The business achieved an uplift of 27% (almost 45,000) incremental registrations.
Silver: ‘AWS: Bringing the power of cloud computing to businesses of all sizes’ for Amazon Web Services, by The Marketing Practice
Cloud computing offers enormous potential for businesses to grow, innovate, manage their costs and to become more resilient. Until recently, these advantages have been beyond the reach of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The cloud is still regarded as something that requires a significant investment in time, resources and money – something out of reach for all but the largest organisations.Amazon Web Services (AWS) set about changing that perception and opening up the opportunity of the cloud to businesses of all sizes, including SMBs. With the help of The Marketing Practice, AWS devised a global campaign with regional localisations and a Marketo-driven nurture-email cadence.Three goals were set. They wanted to reduce lead-to-opportunity conversion time from six months (pre-2021 average in EMEA and NAMER) to 3.5 months, outperform other AWS email benchmarks and support the generation of pipeline. This programme slashed lead-to-opportunity conversion time from six to four months; beat internal AWS email benchmarks; and contributed to influence opportunities far exceeding targets.
Category 23: Best product or service launch campaign
Gold: ‘NyRock – an evolution in stone wool’ by ROCKWOOL UK
One of the biggest innovations in ROCKWOOL history, the launch of NyRock required a smart, data-driven campaign to break through in a competitive and complex market that’s further complicated by habitual buying behaviour. Using rousing video content with complementary multi-channel tactics and maximising reach through partner engagement and a champions programme, ROCKWOOL focused on driving data capture at scale, enabling subsequent nurturing and conversion to specification and sales. Data-driven decisions, creative activations and a phased approach also helped to create interest, intrigue and the opportunity to test and learn, leading the NyRock campaign to yield significant results for the business and far surpass marketing metrics. It also achieved 165% of the company’s 12-month target just eight months in.
Silver: ‘Pack to the future’ for Stein IAS, by Paper and Packaging Board
The Paper and Packaging Board was originally invited by Pack Expo, the industry’s leading packaging trade show attended by +45K, to join its innovation exhibit. But they thought the concept was a showstopper and gave P+PB its own space. P+PB would use this key, high-traffic area of the show to launch its residential recycling education programme: Box to Nature.Playing off the expo’s theme (Pack to the Future), P+PB didn’t just build a to-scale cardboard DeLorean and place it in a fully recyclable, corrugate booth. It created – from the ground up – a VR experience that put attendees in the driver’s seat and sent them to a sustainable future made possible by the programme’s efforts.Clever, fun writing. Beautiful, 3D world-building. Spot-on, crazy acting. It was immersion at its best. The five-minute experience starts in the driver’s seat of the corrugate car. The mad scientist appears as a hologram to transport through a wormhole to a sustainable future and explain why brands should put the Box to Nature mark on their boxes.The experience made P+PB more than just the talk of Pack Expo. Having officially launched in October ’22, the programme is projected to grow by 5X in 2023.
Silver: ‘ScottishPower: Leading the charge’ by ScottishPower
ScottishPower is empowering businesses with a new public EV charging initiative. This six-week campaign launched that initiative to the public and exceeded expectations, achieving impressive results in a short period of time.With a strategic channel mix, ScottishPower maximised engagement and messaging traction throughout the customer journey. The results were outstanding with 2.2 million digital media impressions, 125,000 trade press reach, and an 18% increase in awareness of the public charging capability. Website visits to the EV public product page increased by 300%, and LinkedIn interactions and page follows experienced significant growth too.The campaign educated and empowered businesses to take advantage of revenue opportunities and enhance their green credentials, ScottishPower set the stage for future growth and established themselves as a driving force in the electrification of transportation.
Category 24: Best customer growth or retention initiative
Gold: ‘Unleashing untapped data potential’ for Neo4j, by Digital Radish
This was a dynamic sales enablement initiative that unlocked untapped buy-in from some of the world’s biggest organisations by proving the true power of what they already had. Neo4j is the world’s graph database technology provider, fighting fraud and spotting intricate data patterns for global giants.But though these huge organisations were only using Neo4j for a single small use case, its technology is capable of so much more. The opportunity was there for sales to grow revenue among these leading businesses, expanding cases within existing teams and across new business areas. To unlock these opportunities, sales required deep strategic resources to identify customers’ decision-making units and team structures and uncover individual customer challenges to focus on when selling.The resulting 1:1 campaign encouraged carefully selected targets to ‘Shape their data into something greater’, communicating a highly complex offering with crystal clarity. Plus, a bespoke content library for each customer that sales leads leveraged to win new admirers within eight of their top accounts.With more than 200 new contacts added to the database and 30 new contacts attending in-person customer events, this was a campaign that truly broadened horizons.
Silver: ‘Shifting gears on growth’ for ServiceNow, by The Marketing Practice
Clearly defined category entry points can be both a blessing and a curse. In 2019, ServiceNow’s platform was chosen by an automotive client as the ideal solution for its IT service management challenges. However, this led to a perception that ServiceNow was just ‘an IT ticketing provider’, rather than a credible partner to support strategic, large-scale digital transformation across the client.How do you cross and up-sell from such a tightly-defined starting point? This was the conundrum ServiceNow’s sales team presented to their ABM colleagues ahead of a critical executive meeting in October 2022.Working with their agency, The Marketing Practice (TMP), the ABM team crafted a creative narrative allied to the client’s “sheer driving pleasure” brand promise. A value proposition, broken down into three audiences, demonstrated ServiceNow’s qualifications to support client’s aspirations, end-to-end.In just two months, branded event assets were built to showcase the new narrative and concept, covering everything from an inspiration video featuring a talking car, to posters, roll-ups, an interactive card, screensavers and nametags.
Bronze: ‘Driving Customer Lifetime Value’ for Ledger Bennett, by American Express Global Business Travel
Amex Global Business Travel is a SaaS company that supports SMEs with corporate travel management. Despite plenty of customers signing up for their travel programme, Amex GBT only generated revenue when those sign-ups started using tools and services. And they were struggling to turn more of them into revenue-generating customers.To help drive adoption and engagement with Amex GBT’s travel products, Ledger Bennett needed to revamp existing content. This included developing new audience personas, revamping ‘Travel Info Hub’, designing a new onboarding welcome pack and optimising onboarding and tenure emails.Following this project, Amex GBT’s onboarded accounts are now three times more likely to activate — translating to more revenue-generating customers. The client also reported a 38% average email open rate, 94% customer profile completion during the onboarding phase, 100% customer satisfaction with the new welcome programme experience and 143% year-on-year revenue growth. The key to achieving these results on a limited budget was specificity.By aiming the content at a specific audience (existing Amex GBT customers) based on newly created personas, the agency was able to produce effective, highly tailored messaging that significantly boosted audience engagement.
Category 25: Most commercially successful campaign
Gold: ‘Global Healthcare Engagement for Atos’ for Atos, by HUT 3
Through the delivery of a 12-month global campaign, HUT 3 has enabled IT company Atos/Eviden to secure an unprecedented amount of new business for its healthcare and life sciences division. The project aimed to present leaders in hospitals and healthcare organisations with a vision of the future of healthcare and how Atos/Eviden could help them get there via its cutting-edge digital solutions.To achieve this, HUT 3 created a 50-page thought leadership report (informed by interviews with 35 global industry leaders) and 30 related assets, including articles, eBooks, fireside chats, videos, infographics, and interactive digital models – all of which were delivered through LinkedIn via an ABM lite campaign with clustered geographies.Key to the campaign’s success was HUT 3’s sector-leading approach to data. By tracking engagement across all gated and ungated content and utilising intent data, the team were able to target content to the right lines of business and job functions on a global scale.The campaign has directly enabled Atos/Eviden’ sales team to close deals across the globe, resulting in an exceptional ROI of 73,876%.
Silver: ‘S&P Global Market Intelligence – Set the Pace persona marketing campaign, 2022′ by S&P Global Market Intelligence
Set the Pace was an integrated, persona-based B2B marketing campaign that highlighted how S&P Global Market Intelligence’s suite of technology solutions, data, and expertise can help corporations of all sizes enhance enterprise-wide decision-making, streamline workflow efficiencies, and accelerate growth. Phase one of the campaign launched in July 2022 and targeted executive decision-makers at non-financial corporations. Phase two launched in September 2022 and explored how the offerings addressed eight specific persona workflows, continuing the discussion on how companies could set the pace.Following S&P Global’s merger with IHS Markit in Q1 2022, Set the Pace was designed to be the first campaign to apply the new corporate brand message ‘Seek and Prosper’ and showcase S&P Global Market Intelligence’s expanded product offerings and use cases. It ultimately delivered 3x the marketing qualified lead (MQL) volume goal and enabled countless cross-business line sales opportunities, achieving a record 1,443% ROI.
Bronze: ‘Automate To Empower’ by ServiceNow
When done right, automation can add value beyond the bottom line; it creates the space to unlock innovation, inspire and empower employees to deliver more for their company. Service Now set out to prove this through research-backed data, and created a campaign that showed the power of empowerment resulting in an ROI of 146:1 across Q4 2022 and Q1 2023 when the campaign ran.In partnership with analyst firm IDC, 1500 employees across industries, lines of business and seniority levels were surveyed to understand digital maturity within their organisation, frustrations, and perception of the threat of automation. Research findings confirmed the hypothesis: that strategic automation frees employees to be more productive, engaged, and forward-thinking, leading to better retention, productivity, satisfaction, and greater business outcomes.This research supported concurrent demand generation activities for five global solutions. There were 73 pieces of content created including eBooks, infographics, analyst videos, and webinar kits. In addition, content was localised for EMEA and APJ markets and activated through paid digital, owned social, and field events. Nineteen teams across marketing partnered in the development/activation of this campaign, which was one of the biggest pipeline generators for marketing in 2022.
Highly Commended: ‘20 Grand in your Hand’ for Reliance Worldwide Corporation (RWC), by Milestone Creative
RWC launched the campaign ‘20 Grand in your Hand’ under its JG Speedfit brand, this is the first big sales promotion campaign that Milestone Creative has run since the pandemic. The aim was to spread some joy by offering one lucky plumber the chance to win 20 Grand in our UK-wide campaign. As well as creating an uplift in sales, they wanted to strengthen the relationships with their distribution partners and create excitement within the community of plumbers. Halfway through the 6-month campaign, they were so pleased with the results that they decided to enter these awards prior to the campaign concluding in July 2023. They had already exceeded their sales target by +100% and the average engagement rate doubled the industry benchmark (ROI = 9x). Their strong creative execution is working well, resulting in lots of user-generated content. Their multi-channel approach has increased their reach and visibility, with a consistent look and feel across digital and traditional channels.Engagement metrics also show the campaign is delivering way beyond their short-term tactical goals. It’s also strengthening our long-term trade relationships and positive brand leader perceptions.
Category 26: B2B marketing team of the year
Gold: Mitie
The transformation of the marketing team in Mitie has been significant. It grew the team from five to 27 in a short space of time as well as driving an outcome, not an activity mindset across the team.Structurally, Mitie has implemented a centre of excellence and business partnering model to make sure that they have the marketing specialisms they need alongside tight sales alignment. Creativity was embraced, and, indeed it was a necessity as the budget was extremely constrained. No idea was a bad one; and backing to try something new is common (as long as you return to show what you have learnt from the experiment).Initially, the team struggled to break down the legacy of siloed working but through the co-creation of a new team charter and working on clarity of roles, Mitie has fostered a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.Quality and excellence was fundamental and this focus has resulted in consistently improving campaign performance with measurable commercial benefits. Mitie has attracted excellent talent and focus on making this marketing team feel welcoming to everyone (as reflected in ED&I statistics) whilst being a great place to grow a B2B marketing career.
Silver: Addleshaw Goddard
While marketing wisdom has always been to ‘zig while others zag,’ in some categories, it is rare to find brands that relentlessly zig. Yet in an industry not renowned for innovative marketing, emotive communications, or breaking rules, law firm Addleshaw Goddard’s marketing team has done that repeatedly. Facing both deluged client inboxes and rivals with five times more resources, the firm’s marketing team has consistently broken conventions to stand out. Its commitment to delivering more imagination and more impact than rivals saw it deliver a slew of B2B marketing firsts, ranging from musicians singing about thought leadership research and a robot writing luminescent legal poetry, to adverts featuring Fish & Chipmunks. And their surprising approach helped them exceed expectations.Media coverage more than tripled and digital campaign response rates more than doubled, leading to thousands of business conversations and £millions in attributable revenue growth. And the firm’s distinctive marketing approach truly resonated with target audiences.
Bronze: LCP
LCP is a fast growing consultancy firm which grew 26% in the last financial year, hitting 1000 people strong. The incredible team delivered an impressive programme of work through a period of fast change, set against the financial markets turmoil of the mini-budget, ambitious diversification efforts and demanding goals – with a remarkable sense of togetherness, creativity and fun.This year, the team has delivered, in addition to a stretching programme of regular activity, a rebrand with a new strapline, values and visual branding, to support diversification. With a strapline of “Powering Possibility”, LCP has achieved an impressive cut through already and driven real engagement and change. LCP supported its first acquisition and developed and launched a sub brand for LCP Delta – the energy transition consultancy. They also carried out a client landscape project, achieved an NPS score of +64, achieved unprecedented levels of press coverage and received an 88% engagement rate score in the LCP voice people survey.
Highly Commended: Panaseer
Panaseer’s marketing team has delivered the company’s biggest ever sales pipeline in H1 2023 while overcoming uncertainty, a restricted budget and a significant team restructure. Comparing the marketing budget to qualified sales pipeline, the team delivered 3,100% ROI in 2022 and is currently tracking at 4,400% ROI in 2023.These results have been driven by teamwork, creativity and work ethic, while the team has also taken risks to ensure cut through in a crowded cybersecurity market. This has included trialling new marketing automation technology, targeting new topics for PR and content, building a new website entirely in-house, and testing new media partnerships. Most recently, they put on a successful event at a major cybersecurity conference despite only having a small budget and six weeks to plan.As a result, the team is on course to beat its annual goals for revenue pipeline despite facing a difficult economic environment. This is truly the mark of a cohesive and high-performing marketing team.
Category 27: B2B marketer of the year
Gold: Ryan Almond, Global ABM Director, Henkel
Ryan Almond was brought on board at Henkel Adhesives to run a strategic pilot and prove out a modern-day Account-based Marketing philosophy. Henkel, a 146-year-old global company leading in many sectors, needed broad marketing, digital and commercial transformation to keep delivering exceptional customer experiences for another century to come. Ryan led a small team to target one strategic vertical (datacom & telecom) and built a fully blended pyramid (1:many | 1:few | 1:1) with a sliding scale of funding, personalisation and intensity of communications correlated to the commercial attractiveness of the accounts and their incumbent wants/needs. The sales team for the vertical and ‘top-of-pyramid’ accounts worked hand-in-hand with Ryan and the team from day one and are still entirely integrated. With new solution-focused content created for the vertical itself, mapped to the entire buying cycle, the campaign has yielded over 4,000 leads, 6 new meetings, 3 direct opportunities and significantly influenced revenue. For the major 1:1 account (Cisco), Ryan and the team implemented a red-carpet approach with hyper-personalised, co-branded assets spanning multiple online and offline channels and innovative targeting mechanisms (direct mail bridging online and offline with the first ever use of NFT’s in a B2B campaign).Equipped with a Master’s in Strategic Management & Marketing and a Bachelor’s in Entertainment Marketing, Ryan’s passion for B2B was ignited during a formative placement at IBM’s Global Marketing team, fuelling his unparalleled success in the B2B marketing realm.
Gold: Sarah Sutton, CMO, Send Technology
Sarah has been making waves in the B2B strategic marketing, comms, and advocacy space for more than 15 years. From creating brands, and driving lead generation, to running events, and formulating winning PR strategies, Sarah has been instrumental in changing the way tech companies market their solutions and run their businesses.With a keen eye for detail, Sarah has had a transformative effect on every company she’s worked for, and along the way has won several prestigious awards for her groundbreaking work. That’s no mean feat given she’s self-taught in marketing, although she credits the impact several amazing mentors and managers have had on her, who gave her a wealth of experience, and invaluable skills.Sarah joined Send Technology in 2021, single-handedly setting up their marketing department, and in the last year became their permanent CMO, creating a team of four. Helping shape the messaging around their Series A funding story resulted in a $10 million investment, accelerating their growth in the UK and US. In addition, her emotionally charged ‘Love Underwriting’ campaign was instrumental in Send Technology gaining more than 40 opportunities on their deal board with an ARR value of £45 million. Sarah now sits on the exec as chair.
Silver: Tracy Swartzendruber, VP Marketing, PGOG, GE Digital
As a leader, Tracy Swartzendruber finds commonalities that bind her team, roots out inefficiency in processes, seeks inspiration inside and outside of her industry, and is committed to continual progress. As VP of Marketing, Power Generation, Oil & Gas, for GE Digital, she applies those characteristics to help her colleagues, partners, internal stakeholders, and customers see the potential of software to accelerate the energy transition.Over the past year, she directed a new marketing campaign with a bold look and message unlike anything GE Digital’s peers in the energy software industry were doing. The campaign positioned GE Digital as the practical visionary, enabling legacy companies to transition to a cleaner energy future while ensuring stability and profitability.Tracy’s own practical and visionary qualities were brought to bear as she broke down silos and assembled a team of product and content marketers and embedded agency partners to work in concert with product and sales experts to overhaul the company’s marketing and sales content and keep leads engaged throughout the funnel.Through her leadership, the business increased pipeline by 48% and achieved a 94% conversion rate from SAL to SQL.
Category 28: B2B agency of the year
Gold: Fight or Flight
Fight or Flight is a three-year old, specialist B2B agency that launched into the pandemic, in April 2020. In the last 12 months, the Soho-based firm’s relentless focus on B2B creativity has driven year on-year revenue growth of 86% and unlocked new briefs from leading brands including AMEX GBT, Expedia, LinkedIn, Nokia, Sky, Siemens, and Salesforce.Fight or Flight has brought energy, ambition and swagger to the B2B category, attracting and inspiring a new breed of bold, brave B2B clients determined to do standout, breakthrough work. The firm and its clients have proven that creativity can drive commercial impact for B2B businesses and that the market is ready to start a new era of B2B communications.
Silver: Rooster Punk
Where other B2B marketing companies talk about products; Rooster Punk talks people. Where others generate leads; it generates memories. And where others craft messages, we craft stories.We’re here to humanise B2B – in the work we do and how we do it. 2022 was all about “client love” delighting the brilliant and brave people who choose us as their agency partners.What does ‘client love’ look like? Rooster Punk pushed clients to be bolder than ever when it comes to creative executions. It took practical steps to promote well-being at the coop – because happy roosters make happy clients. And Rooster Punk struck a balance between a white-glove, VIP client service approach and repeatable, efficient processes, to create client joy.Focusing on client love brought 21% year-on-year growth and an 85% staff retention rate. And for clients? Brand differentiation through standout creative assets, higher revenues through story-led demand campaigns, and accolades, like a shortlisting in the Best TV/Video Campaign at the Drum B2B awards for Elavon.
Bronze: Digital Radish
Pulitzer prize winner, Annie Dillard, and an unlikely source of inspiration for a commercially minded agency that made Digital Radish ask the question: how do we support our people to do the best work and have the best experience of their lives? One thing’s for sure: neither happens on the Central line.And so Digital Radish set about creating unforgettable worlds, in reality and beyond. This meant making it possible for every employee to live and work in any country they choose. From Bondi Beach to an ancient village in Malta, this is one example of the culture creating unforgettable experiences. Out of reality and into the metaverse, Digital Radish created unforgettable worlds, using the metaverse to take ABM experiences to the next level and connect meaningfully through a metaverse created for children in a local hospital.This has resulted in a spot on The Sunday Times Best Place to Work list, two awards at Ignite USA, plus 21% profit growth, 94% in our happiness analytics (the driving force in business decisions) and client comments like: “the agency was asked to scale mountains, and scaled galaxies instead.”
Category 29: B2B global agency of the year
Gold: Just Global
Just Global is humbled to be considered B2B Agency of the Year. The agency’s focus is to deliver results for our customers, people, and communities, while having a transformative impact on how B2B marketing is done in today’s world.For the customers, the agency broke down its departmental silos, brought innovations to the table, and eliminated random acts of marketing. Just Global delivered a full-funnel campaign results through a unique Connected Experience model. In turn, the agency saw a 71% increase in YoY revenue and a 70%+ pitch win rate.For the people, when others were cutting jobs, Just Global redefined team experiences. The Flex Friday initiative offered bi-weekly, four-day work weeks. New leadership training and onboarding programmes advanced careers. As a result, 34% of the team received promotions, there were 85 new hires, and voluntary attrition was below 10%. For the communities, the agency continued the Just Cares programme with hundreds of volunteer hours. The 4th annual Dick Reed awards celebrated the key vendor partners in B2B marketing. In addition, the new Women at Just community impacted lives.In forging a fiercely independent, B2B, full-service agency that operates on a global level, Just Global redefined B2B marketing services in the modern world.
Silver: Merkle B2B
In a world of change and opportunity, B2B marketers need partners that can help solve their biggest challenges – not (just) sell services. Merkle B2B has continued to thrive by putting clients and people at the heart of our global operating model. They pride themselves on understanding B2B buyers better than anyone, via the Superpowers Index. Merkle B2B focuses on driving business outcomes for clients; examples include helping Ericsson become the most trusted network provider, supporting Workday achieve leading consideration for finance and HR ERP, and working with Irwin Mitchell to ensure a positive impact on disabled people. Merkle B2B also strives to develop and nurture the best people in the business, via record staff satisfaction scores.As an outcome, they’re proud to have been recognised as the largest B2B global agency and have driven significant YoY growth. They do this through client-centric and people-first culture. They are proud to represent Merkle B2B and are excited to seize the opportunity in front of us all to drive commercial growth, and positively impact society.
Bronze: Gravity Global
Gravity Global was created in 2008 from a chance meeting in a Starbucks. Three marketers began discussing how B2B marketing is underserved on a global scale and not taken seriously. Something that couldn’t be reconciled with B2B being the main driver of the global economy. After a lot more coffee, it was decided to launch a marketing agency and to have a global footprint from the very start.Gravity Global is now ranked by revenue in the top 3 in the UK and top 2 in the US. Gravity Global is one of the world’s most awarded B2B agencies with 498 awards so far in 2023. In addition, the agency has had a 48% headcount growth, 90% revenue growth and an NPS score of 9.3 out of 10. In addition, it was recognised as the Top 3 B2B Agency by revenue in the UK, and Top 2 in the US.
Category 30: Grand Prix
Gold: Lighter Deliveries’ for Royal Mail, by The Creative Consultancy
Royal Mail is the UK’s greenest delivery partner due to mostly on-foot deliveries. They wanted to share this message to open doors with C-Suite/Director-level decision makers in 10 large retail businesses that had been previously unresponsive to their sales team.To get cut-through with the senior audience, The Creative Consultancy created an ABM direct mail piece, bespoke to each brand. The company developed a box within a box, hand-delivered by dancing posties. The larger box was 60cm3: the equivalent volume of CO2 produced in a delivery with another carrier, and suspended inside was a box half the size to showcase the 50% less CO2 produced by a Royal Mail delivery.Each box was designed using each brands’ look and feel and written with their own tone of voice, focusing on the commonality between the brands’ ethos and sustainability, and Royal Mail’s. QR codes directed to landing pages featuring interviews with each brands’ own shoppers, talking about the importance of sustainability and green delivery. Royal Mail have now had contact with nine of the 10 brands and booked meetings with several.
Gold: ‘What on Earth is the value of space?’ for Inmarsat, by Ogilvy
British satellite communications (satcom) company Inmarsat operates a constellation of geostationary satellites that beam data to industries all over the world. Industries that underpin everyday terrestrial life: airlines, logistics companies, utilities, and governments. It’s a sector recently disrupted by the new tech billionaires arriving from consumer industries.
Very quickly, Inmarsat was being categorised as ‘Old Space’ in the new space race. Inmarsat needed to re-establish its influence by tackling topics of real significance. And at the same time, remind businesses why Inmarsat was the right choice. Ogilvy’s strategy was to generate interest that would reverberate beyond Inmarsat’s traditional audience, driven by their guiding belief that space is a place for everyone.
The campaign execution had two parts: Firstly, doing something most B2B businesses don’t (or can’t) do – go directly to the public to build awareness. Secondly, harnessing that opinion to create a platform so Inmarsat could act as an ambassador for the space sector – drawing attention to the havoc occurring in orbit, and encouraging satcom customers to rethink the value of space.
By the time the campaign was finished, headlines were splashed across front pages worldwide and set the agenda at COP 27.