United Kingdom

The 2022 Effie Awards UK winners were announced and celebrated on 20th October in London.
 
Tesco, BBH and MediaCom scooped the Grand Effie for ‘Wearing in, not Wearing out: Six Years of Food Love Stories (and counting)’. The judges praised the marketing team and agency for creating a rich and flexible platform that delivers a tangible impact to the brand and the wider business year after year.

This year’s competition received another set of diverse entries with the judges particularly impressed by the high standard. Winners were selected for solving a marketing challenge effectively, connecting with the target audience and achieving outstanding results.

Gold awards also went to Aldi UK, Anusol, ITV, KFC, McDonald’s, Mini Cheddars and Very. Several winners were noted for making great use of humour to connect with audiences, including ITV and Veg Power’s ‘Eat Them To Defeat Them’, a supposedly silly idea designed to solve a serious problem, and Anusol’s taboo-smashing and growth delivering, ‘Bum’s the Word’.

Five Silver awards were also handed out: Brook, the sexual health and wellbeing charity, which won in the small budgets category, B&Q, the British Beer and Pub Association, family history site Ancestry and pharmaceutical brand, Naloxone. The AA and NHS England each took a bronze award.

Two out of the three Silver-winning entries were campaigns aimed at mobilising the nation to influence the government. These were ‘Long Live the Local’ from the British Beer and Pub Association, and Brook’s ‘Never Without Consent’.

Karina Wilsher, Chair of the Effie UK Council and Partner and Global CEO at Anomaly, said: “This year we had more entries and winners from 'Sustained Success' and 'Positive Change' than ever before.  This highlights more than ever the crucial role marketing can play, particularly during testing times. The UK industry has proved that even as we head into another challenging period, it is delivering ideas that work and showing innovation and resilience.”

Juliet Haygarth, Managing Director, Effie UK, said: “The UK Effie judges are considered the toughest across our 56 international programmes, so to have awarded a record eight Golds says so much about the high standard of entries we received. It is even more fantastic given many of the campaigns launched during the tough second year of the pandemic.”
 
See the full list of winners & finalists >

The Effie UK Bounce Forward Summit on 13th May featured two 30-minute discussion panels.
 
The first session ‘What have we learnt?’ explored the key learnings all marketers should be aware of as we begin to emerge out of the crisis.
 
Speakers:
- Cristina Diezhandino, Chief Marketing Officer, Diageo
- Danielle Hawley, Global Executive Creative Director, Uber
- Khartoon Weiss, Head of Global Agency & Accounts, TikTok
Session moderated by Stephen Lepitak, UK Bureau Chief, Adweek.
 
Whilst 'How do we want to be?' discussed practical ways to smash norms and stereotypes within out teams, our thinking and our output.
 
Speakers:
- Asad Dhunna, Founder & CEO, The Unmistakables
- Tanja Grubner, Global Marketing & Communications Director, Feminine Care, Essity
- Steven Lacey, Founder, The Outsiders
Session moderated by Nicola Kemp, Editorial Director, Creativebrief.
 
A common theme emerged from both panels: the need to operate with intention and have the next level of conversation with ourselves and our customers.  To strip away artifice, embrace realness and get to the inner workings of culture.  To move away from stereotypes and tropes.  And to acknowledge that when you take a stand, not everyone will like it.  Embrace the lovers, not the haters was the perfect closing thought. 

Watch the sessions here >

In need of a little inspiration as you work on your 2022 Awards entries?  Then check out our latest Effie UK Report, produced in partnership with Ipsos UK.

According to the Report, embracing constraints, setting clear objectives, and sticking with long-running campaigns are key themes to the most effective UK campaigns during the pandemic.  

The Report is based on analysis of winning entries and finalists in the 2021 Effie Awards UK competition, which awarded work that ran in 2020 – the first year of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The results provide essential learnings for brands now, as the industry tries to navigate 2022.

Conducting multiple streams of research, using more channels, boosting spend, not assuming you always need to outspend the competition, and focusing on doing things differently in creative and media were also effectiveness success factors.

To download the full report, click here.

The Effie Case Database offers a collection of Ideas That Work®, featuring thousansd finalist and and winning case studies and creative reels, highlighting effective marketing communications strategies, ideas and results from around the world.

Learn more >