Effie Ireland Key Information 2025

The 2025 Effie Awards Ireland Competition has a total of 22 categories you can enter, split across Industry Categories and Specialist Categories.

Industry Categories

You may only enter one Industry category per Brand / Campaign. The Industry categories are self-explanatory, however if you are unsure of which category your product / service or brand fits into, please email kate@iapi.com

The Specialist Categories are defined as follows:

• Small Budgets

Cases eligible for this category must represent the only communications efforts for this brand during the qualifying time period. To be eligible, an entry may not be for a line extension, a sub brand, or have an overarching brand campaign to support it. Value of donated and non-traditional media as well as activation costs must be included. This category is all about what you were able to achieve with a small media budget, rather than small production and creative budget. TOTAL BUDGET eligible is less than €50k.

• Positive Change – Limited to For-Profit Brands

This category is open to Brand organisations as long as the effort is focused on improving society or the environment for purely altruistic purposes. (Non-Profit organisations are not eligible for this category and should enter the Not-For-Profit Industry category instead.) Any and all marketing efforts, whether full campaigns or unique efforts within a campaign are eligible to enter as long as measurable results exist.

This award celebrates brands that are making the world a better place by using the power of their platforms for “good.” Winners will be those efforts that most effectively combined business goals with a social or environmental cause and successfully related that cause back to the company’s overall brand strategy, resulting in positive business AND social impact.

1. Marketing efforts undertaken by for-profit entities that focused on social causes (e.g. health, education, community, family, etc.) are eligible.
2. When entering, entrants must provide information on the intent-to-do-good goals as well as the business goals for the effort and the results achieved for both.
3. How the Social Good initiative related back to the overall brand strategy. Why was this initiative selected and why was it the right fit for the brand?

• Business to Business

For marketing efforts from businesses targeting other businesses. Includes B2B efforts for any type of product or service, from any marketplace segment.

• Domestic Brands (Irish based goods or services)

Product or service marketing efforts that are designed to market Irish businesses to international and/or domestic audiences.

• New Product or Service / Renaissance

Any marketing effort used to introduce a new product or service. Your entry must be written to address how your product and service was new and the situation you faced as a result of it being new. For example, what specifically was new? Why did the newness matter? Write the entry to address the category situation (new product/service introductions) similar to what you would do when writing your entry to address a category situation like small budgets, etc.

For renaissance or re-birth campaigns, your brand must have experienced a downturn of several years (at least two + years), and a period of at least six months of upturn sales. Entrants must detail the business challenge, the situation of the category, the competitive landscape and how the effort succeeded. NOTE: For re-birth or renaissance campaigns: The entry must address the previous marketing investment and strategy as part of the context.

NOTE: Line extensions DO NOT QUALIFY for submission in this category. Effie defines line extension as: Any variation of an existing product that shares the same brand name and is in the same category as the existing product and shares the same characteristics as the parent but offers new benefit (e.g. flavour, size, package, type, etc.). Products that bear the same brand name and offer the consumer varied options (e.g. Diet version of drink).

• PR and/or Brand Experience

This category is to showcase communications that are both earned and paid for in the PR and/or brand experience sector. This includes all manner of PR communications and brand experiences that truly brought a brand or product to life and interacted with a specific audience to achieve desired objectives.

• Shopper Marketing

Winners in this category will represent the best examples of manufacturers and retailers committed to providing effective shopper programs. Enter brands that have ensured an effective, connected shopper journey and showcase how manufacturers and retailers are connecting the dots in their engagement strategies to ensure simple, seamless, effective experiences across the shoppers’ path to purchase. In- store, online, customer service, loyalty programs, mobile apps, delivery services, social media, aisle disruption – it could entail anything – as long as the case illustrates how it was all connected to provide a fully integrated “shopper journey” from beginning to end.

• Media Innovation or Idea

This is about outstanding effectiveness as a result of media-led idea or a media channel/s innovation.

Media Idea: The award honours media-led ideas that drives effectiveness that has been the direct result of the use of media. An idea for creating and distributing content that is central to the campaign story. It could involve anything from a specific advertising campaign or marketing strategy to a new format for a TV show or poster.

Media Innovation: This award also showcases the use of a new channel or combination of channels used in an entirely new way that changes the way a particular media channel is consumed or creates a new channel. This can be as part of the idea or a stand alone innovation that supports a broader idea. Whether the effort was one execution or multiple, and/or used one engagement channel or multiple – the work must represent new and creative usage of the media channels.

• Media Content or Brand Partnership

This category is for efforts that effectively reached their audience through the creation of original branded content or through a media partnership, that is not traditional advertising. The core of the entry should be content designed to be consumed/ experienced and sought out by the consumer for entertaining or informative reasons. Entrants must detail the content, how it related back to the overall brand and business goals, how it was distributed to, and shared by, the audience, and the results it achieved for the brand and business.

Branded Content may be produced and distributed by Media Partners or independently and can include longform entertainment. Judges will expect to understand why branded content was chosen as a tactic.

This category is also for cases that effectively leverage a media partnership to the benefit of their brand KPIs or sales. The objectives and intent of the partnership needs to be clearly defined. Beyond just media spend and reach, how did the strategy help the effectiveness of the partnership?

• Sponsorship

This category is for cases that effectively leverage a sponsorship partnership to the benefit of their brand KPIs or sales. The objectives and intent of the sponsorship needs to be clearly defined. The fit between the partner and the brand should be clearly explained as it relates to the brand’s purpose, values and audience(s). How was this partnership unique? How did the sponsorship amplify the brands’ core values? Beyond just media spend and reach, how did the strategy help the effectiveness of the sponsorship?

• Sustained Effectiveness*

Product or service marketing efforts experienced sustained success for 3 or more years are eligible for entry.

• At a minimum, the case must date back to 31st December 2022 and you must include 2024 results.
• Entries must have a common objective in both strategy and creative executions; with a continuation of core executional elements (e.g. spokesperson, song, theme, tagline, etc.) that demonstrates effectiveness over time.
• To enter you must be able to provide data about the case in at least it’s first year 2022, it’s interim year 2023 and the most recent year, 2024. The recent year’s results must be included (1st Jan 2024 – 31st Dec 2024).
• The Sustained Success can extend further back than 2022 or include some results from 2025 as well but at a minimum must cover the three year’s mentioned above.

*A separate entry form and different creative requirements are required for the Sustained Effectiveness category.