Welcome to your ultimate guide to the best marketing and brand awards list for 2024! In the dynamic and often frantic world of marketing and branding, staying ahead of the competition is crucial for businesses, marketers and their creative teams. Winning a prestigious award can provide validation, recognition, and a competitive edge that can elevate your brand to new heights. In this article, we’ll explore why marketing and brand awards matter, how they can benefit your business, and highlight 10 must-know awards you should consider entering this year, including submission dates and eligibility requirements.
Why Marketing and Brand Awards Matter
Aside from the sheer joy of winning a coveted title, marketing awards offer a pile of benefits. Here are some key reasons why they matter:
Client Attraction and Retention
Clients are more likely to trust and engage with award-winning brands, making it easier to attract new customers and retain existing ones. This trust can also translate into stronger, long-term relationships with clients who appreciate the proven quality and innovation behind award-winning work.
Validation of Excellence
Winning a marketing or brand award is a testament to your team’s hard work and creativity. Getting a ‘nod’ from respected industry leaders signals to your peers, customers, future employers, and even your family and friends that your marketing strategies and creative outputs are top-notch.
Increased Brand Awareness
Award wins quite often receive media coverage and industry recognition, boosting your brand’s visibility and credibility. So, it’s almost like winning the award is an extension of your brand’s campaign. Your dedication simply knows no bounds and almost deserves a separate brand award for this alone.
Motivation and Morale
Recognition for your efforts boosts team morale and provides motivation to continue innovating and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in marketing and brand work. It creates a culture of excellence and encourages team members to strive for even greater achievements.
Networking Opportunities
Aside from lavish catering and the chance to dress up, marketing award events and ceremonies provide a platform for networking with industry leaders, potential clients, and collaborators. These connections can lead to new partnerships and opportunities for growth that can benefit your brand in the long run.
Celebrating Online Brand Portals
One glaringly overlooked aspect of marketing and brand awards is the recognition of brand guidelines. In fact, it would be nearly impossible to win a marketing or brand award without referring to one.
These days brand guidelines mostly live as dynamic online resources commonly known as brand portals. Brand portals serve as centralized hubs for all brand assets and guidelines, ensuring consistency and coherence across marketing campaigns. Online brand portals are indispensable when it comes to maintaining brand identity, improving collaboration, and streamlining marketing efforts.
Due to their importance, plus the creative flexibility and interactivity they offer, marketing and brand awards are beginning to take note and celebrate the design and innovation within the tool itself. Awarding exceptional brand portals acknowledges the importance of these tools in successful brand management and honors the efforts of those who build and maintain them.
Best Marketing Awards List for 2024
Now, let’s take a look at some of the most prestigious marketing and brand awards open for submissions in 2024. These awards celebrate excellence in marketing and branding across various industries and offer opportunities for businesses and individuals to showcase their achievements:
1. The 2024 Brandie Awards, presented by IntelligenceBank
The Brandie Awards celebrate excellence in brand design, campaigns, rebrands, brand updates and brand management portals. The Brandies are emerging as one of the world’s newest and best brand awards. They recognize the brand work performed by marketing and brand heroes worldwide – the innovators, the ideators and the implementers who bring their brand to life.
Open for submissions: April 17 – May 31, 2024.
Eligibility: A global competition open to marketers and their agencies.
Entry fee: Free
2. Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
The Cannes Lions Celebrates creativity in advertising and marketing communications across multiple categories. It is among the best marketing awards going. Winning a Lion, or even having something entered is a true career highlight.
Open for submissions: Entries close April 15, 2024.
Eligibility: Open to individuals and companies globally.
Entry fee: Various. See website.
3. The Effie Awards
Recognizing effective marketing campaigns that achieve exceptional results, the Effie Awards exist to inspire and champion the practice and practitioners of marketing effectiveness globally. They hold the belief that “…if it’s not effective marketing, it isn’t marketing at all.”
Open for submissions: Various marketing award dates across the globe. The ‘Best of the Best’ Awards are open for submissions until June 17, 2024.
Eligibility: Open to marketing and advertising professionals worldwide.
Entry fee: Prices for the ‘Best of the Best’ range from $1,750 to $2,120.
4. The Drum Marketing Awards
This marketing award celebrates exceptional campaigns and strategies across 21 categories and multiple industries. The Drum Awards are a global awards program that recognizes the best companies and people from across the marketing and communications industry.
Open for submissions: Various entries close July 10 2024 – April 30, 2024.
Eligibility: Open to individuals and companies worldwide.
Entry fees: Various. See website.
5. MarCom Awards
Administered by the Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals (AMCP) the MarCom Awards honors excellence in marketing and communication while recognizing the creativity, hard work and generosity of industry professionals.
Open for submissions: Entries close November 1, 2024
Eligibility: Open to individuals and companies worldwide.
Entry fees: Between $125 and $195 plus cost of trophy.
6. Hermes Awards
Like the MarCom Awards, the Hermes Awards are also administered by the AMPC. This marketing award is designed to recognize communication professionals involved in the conceptualizing, writing and design of marketing communications programs across a wide range of categories. The Hemes Awards have earned a reputation for accuracy, fairness, and credibility as entries are judged on what you apparently had to work with – not against the other entrants in the category.
Open for submissions: Entries close April 18, 2024
Eligibility: Open to individuals and companies worldwide.
Entry fees: Between $125 and $195 plus cost of trophy.
7. B2B Marketing Awards
B2B marketing is really coming into its own in recent times. No longer the poor cousin to B2C, the B2B Marketing Awards is a standalone celebration recognizing excellence in B2B marketing. These marketing awards are the gold standard, not just for B2B, but prove the category can be just as creative and strategic as B2C.
Open for submissions: Entries close April 18, 2024
Eligibility: Open to individuals and companies worldwide.
Entry fees: Between $125 and $195 plus cost of the trophy.
8. The International Content Marketing Awards (CMA)
Run by the Content Marketing Association, these marketing awards unsurprisingly specifically celebrate content marketing. The CMAs offer marketing awards for the best campaigns, strategies, teams and individuals, honoring those who set a high standard of what great content looks like across the globe.
Open for submissions: Visit site to download pack for entry dates.
Eligibility: Open to individuals and companies worldwide.
Entry fees: Various. See website.
9. Digiday Awards
So much of our marketing efforts are now digital, so it’s no wonder there is a marketing award category just for that. The digital marketing awards aka the Digiday Awards run by Digiday Media offer a variety of opportunities for the most successful brands and agencies around the globe to be recognized for their award-winning digital marketing and media work.
Open for submissions: Entries close August 2 2024. Note, there are also multi city events running to various deadlines.
Eligibility: Open to individuals and companies worldwide.
Entry fees: Yes. Visit website.
10. The w3 Awards
The w3 Awards celebrate digital excellence by honoring outstanding work across Websites, Marketing, Video, Mobile Sites & Apps, Social, Podcasts, and Emerging Tech. These marketing awards aim to honor the unsung heroes of digital creativity who create imaginative and boundary-blazing work day after day. The w3 Awards is sanctioned by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA). Members come from organizations such as Publicis Sapient, Walt Disney Studios, Meta, Netflix, LG, IBM, Amazon, and many others.
Open for submissions: Entries close May 3, 2024
Eligibility: Open to individuals and companies worldwide.
Entry fees: Between $185 and $295.
You’ve Gotta Be in it to Win it!
While you don’t forge a career in marketing for the awards, it sure is nice to get one. And the only way you or your team are going to get one is to enter. Participating in the 2024 round of marketing and brand awards provides a boost to your brand’s visibility, credibility, and success. By celebrating excellence in these fields, you can demonstrate your leadership and innovation in the industry. What have you got to lose?
