All vehicles & automotive aftermarket products including cars, trucks, motorcycles, vans, both brand and model advertising, gasoline, motor oil, tires, batteries, paint, quick-lube, oil change, muffler, transmission, windshield wipers, enhancements, etc.
Includes cosmetics, fragrances, hair products, nail products, skincare treatments, salons, spas, etc.
Beverages: All beverages, including alcoholic & non-alcoholic.
All products and services related to:
-Agriculture, Industrial, Building: All related products, materials, tools, and services.
-Devices & Furnishings: All home and business devices, appliances and furnishings including smart home devices, kitchen appliances, etc.
-Electronics: Devices may be aimed at consumers or businesses – TVs, radios, mobile devices, home entertainment, laptops, tablets, cameras, computer hardware, game consoles, drones, external or integrated VR/AR devices, sound systems, etc.
-Internet & Telecom: Mobile network providers, high speed Internet access services, online services, bundled communications (internet, telephone, and TV), etc.
-Software: Software, groupware, operating systems, SaaS/IaaS and Cloud based services, software/apps stored locally on a computer/tablet/ mobile device, etc.
Apparel, accessories, jewelry, styling services, clothing rentals, eyewear and footwear.
Fast-moving consumer goods including household goods, office products, personal care, pet care, etc.
All food products, including fresh, packaged and frozen food; snacks; desserts.
Health and wellness products and services that can be directly purchased by a consumer with or without physician involvement. Efforts may also be targeted to physicians or healthcare professionals. Also including work related to health insurance, dental and medical care services.
All products and services related to:
-Entertainment: including apps, movies, programs (TV, online, radio), books, music, DVDs, games, toys, comics, podcasts, etc.
-Culture & the Arts: Plays, museums, music organizations, concert series, cultural festivals, theatre festivals.
-Sports & Leisure: All sporting events, sports teams, sport sponsorships, etc. Products and services aimed at hobbies, leisure and recreation, including but not limited to dating services/apps, wedding planning platforms, personal development/improvement programs/ apps, genetics/ancestry testing services, sporting and camping goods/ services, etc.
-Media & Entertainment Cos.: open to all media and entertainment companies including broadcasters, streaming services, websites (entertainment, lifestyle, news, trade, etc.), magazines, newspapers, consumer or trade media, radio and television stations
-Gaming & E-Sports: All forms of e-sports and multi-player video games, including virtual reality, arcade, console, mobile, online & computer games.
Quick service, casual dining, mid-scale, fine dining and other restaurants. Any type of restaurant may enter.
Open to all retail companies (online and/or brick & mortar) with general or specific merchandise. E.g. department stores; online retailers; clothing, fashion, shoes or jewelry stores; food retailers; movie/book stores; furnishings and design retailers, discount/bulk retailers; home & garden stores, pet care; toy stores; specialty stores; convenience stores, etc.
Financial products and services include: communications promoting the overall image and capabilities of a financial institution; insurance; specific products or services, including credit cards, charge cards, debit cards, home banking, loans, mobile payment services, mortgage, mutual funds, etc.
Includes services such as consulting, accounting, legal, employment, real estate, shipping/ delivery, domestic services, etc.
All modes of transportation such as air, train, bus, taxi, subway systems, rideshares services, bike shares, car rentals, ferries, as well as all forms of travel/tourism including cruises, hotels, resorts, amusement parks, travel websites and booking services, travel tours, tourism campaigns, etc.
For the AI Category, entrants are required to showcase their effective use of artificial intelligence to drive meaningful business outcomes. This category recognizes outstanding campaigns and initiatives where AI was leveraged as a pivotal tool to achieve specific business goals, whether it be enhancing customer engagement, optimizing operations, increasing sales, or any other measurable objective.
Entrants must provide clear evidence of how AI was integrated into their strategy and demonstrate the tangible impact it had on their business growth and desired results. This includes detailed metrics, analytics, and any other relevant data that highlight the effectiveness of the AI implementation. The judges will be
looking for entries that not only display creativity and technical proficiency but also a profound understanding of how AI can be harnessed to produce real, quantifiable success.
This category is for marketing efforts from businesses targeting other businesses. Business-to-business efforts for any type of product or service, from any marketplace segment, are eligible to enter.
This category is for effective efforts centered on a particular business goal. Efforts in the following categories should enter: Corporate Reputation (marketing efforts to promote corporations, not exclusively their products); Marketing Disruptors (efforts that changed the marketing model for the brand/category); and Renaissance (efforts that renaissance a brand).
This category is for efforts that effectively reached their audience through the creation of original branded content that is not 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 either publishers or independently and can include long form entertainment.
Note: Judges will expect to understand why branded content was chosen as a tactic.
This category honors brands that have effectively reached their audience via strategic integrations and partnerships. Submissions should detail how the brand was seamlessly interwoven in an engaging way. Detail the strategic reasoning behind the partnership – why was this partner chosen over others? Clearly explain the selection process of the partner, and how this partnership led to the results that met the brand objectives.
Honoring the most effective integrated campaigns based on a specific shopper insight and designed to engage the shopper and guide the purchase process to achieve conversion. Eligible campaigns include those for single or multiple brands, and/or a category solution. Entries may be brand-driven, retailer-driven, or a combination of the two.
For brands that created positive change by effectively pivoting their marketing program or business activities
in response to significant structural and cultural shifts and moments of crisis (e.g., pandemic, social justice movement, political events, etc.). Entrants need to pinpoint the pivot, and frame for the judges how the
messaging/campaign shifted, the team adjusted the approach to production or go-to-market planning, etc.
Demonstrate the effectiveness of the action for the brand. Examples can include a pivot in positioning, a
change in portfolio management, a digital acceleration, etc.
This category is to showcase how you can create a brand experience beyond traditional advertising.
Work that truly brought a brand or product to life and interacted with a specific audience to achieve desired objectives should be entered. You may have re-invented the product demo, re-imagined the pop-up store, or led a “brick and mortar” retail overhaul; you could have created a new game, an alternate or virtual reality experience or interactive/immersive film experience that effectively showcases a new product or brand personality – it could have been anything. As long as you can prove it truly came alive and worked.
The winners of this award will show how advertisers are reaching out to their audiences to establish meaningful relationships, memorable, engaging experiences, and unique connections with their brands.
Entrants must address how the brand experience related back to the overall brand strategy.
The Health Effectiveness category celebrates marketing efforts proven effective in making a positive impact on health outcomes at an individual and societal level.
Winners of this award will be recognized for innovative marketing strategies, technologies or creative approaches that bring about change to improve patients’ lives.
Audiences can include, but are not limited to, patients, professionals, caregivers, advocacy groups.
Examples include improving patient understanding, engagement and treatment adherence or perhaps a change in healthcare professional behaviour or clinical practice.
Demonstration of significant collaboration with key healthcare stakeholders is important, as is the potential for long-term impact and scalability across regions or populations.
Entries must demonstrate clear results associated with improvements in health outcomes and be underpinned by data that provides a robust-evidence base.
*A separate entry form is required for the Health Effectiveness category.
This category recognizes brands that successfully partnered with influencers to achieve short or long-term marketing goals. Influencers can range from micro to macro and include social media personalities, brand ambassadors, and bloggers. Clearly define the strategy, target audience, and why the influencer was chosen. Highlight how the influencer engaged the audience, influenced consumer behavior, and contributed to the brand's success by driving measurable business results.
In this category, innovative single marketing & business activities or entire marketing programmes will be awarded. You can submit any actions or business idea that has had an exceptionally positive impact on the market position of a brand, product or service. If communication was a significant element of marketing mix, work should be submitted in another competition category of Effie.
Examples of eligible activities in this category include: product/service innovation; change in packaging, both in terms of its appearance and size; design, technology or ux innovation; consumer involvement in product development; operation change; introduction/change of a loyalty program, introduction of a new distribution channel, etc.
This is about outstanding effectiveness as a result of media-led ideas. The line between what constitutes a creative idea and a media idea is blurring. There are occasions when the media idea drove the entire effort. Of course, media cannot exist without the content, but this award is intended to recognize those cases that were led by the media thinking where the integration of media and message led to the success. The award honors media-led ideas that are powerful enough to become the genesis of the communications program itself, to the extent that the program would not have been successful without the strategic media idea.
Efforts used to introduce a new product or service. Whether it is the creation of a whole new brand, a new product from an existing brand, or a new line extension, submissions in this category need to present how audience insights were leveraged to overcome the barriers faced by products/services being launched for the first time. Address the category situation and how your product/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?
This category highlights the success achieved through strategic collaborations between retail media networks and brands, driving measurable business growth for both parties. Whether digital or instore, or omnichannel, demonstrate how your efforts were tailored to specific customer segments using data-driven insights. Showcase the use of multiple channels, both online and offline, to deliver a cohesive and effective campaign that resonates with your target audience and drives tangible results for both retailer and brand.
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. Budget eligibility is as follows: €1 million.
This category is for efforts that set out with the explicit purpose of using social as the primary touch point or have social at their heart. The kind of idea that is specifically designed to take advantage of the socially connected consumer and the influence of social. This could include efforts that effectively worked with key influencers to reach their target audience to achieve short or long-term marketing goals.
Judges are looking for campaigns that begin with a social idea, as opposed to advertising or integrated campaigns with a social media element. They will need a clear rationale for why social was the right way to tackle the brief, and evidence of how social activity measurably and materially drove the commercial result. It is not enough to count the number of impressions, likes or shares. You will need to measure and prove the commercial value of social through the direct effect it had on audience behaviour or perceptions and demonstrate correlation with the achieved business results.
Efforts that experienced sustained success for at least three years are eligible for entry. At a minimum, include at least three years of creative work and case results, and include the current competition year’s results. Work 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. Entries should present the campaign as a clear journey across the years, highlighting key moments, milestones, and turning points that shaped its evolution and effectiveness. As part of the entry, specifically address how the effort evolved over time (e.g., media choices, targeting, insights, new products/services, etc.). Answer all questions for the initial year and describe how/why change occurred over time.
*A separate entry form and different creative requirements are required for the Sustained Success category.
Efforts that experienced sustained success for at least 10 years are eligible for entry. At a minimum, include at least ten years of creative work and case results, and include the current competition year’s results. Work 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. Entries should present the campaign as a clear journey across the years, highlighting key moments, milestones, and turning points that shaped its evolution and effectiveness. As part of the entry, specifically address how the effort evolved over time (e.g., media choices, targeting, insights, new products/services, etc.). Answer all questions for the initial year and describe how/why change occurred over time.
*A separate entry form and different creative requirements are required for the Sustained Success category.
For effective efforts around a particular moment in time or current event. Efforts in the following categories should enter: Seasonal Marketing (efforts focused on time-based interests of their target audience) and Current Events (efforts that effectively leveraged immediate relevance, interest or importance via a targeted strategy around current events (e.g. elections, World Cup, Olympics, economics, etc.
You may enter a case into a maximum of four categories. This can be one Industry category and three specialty category, or four specialty categories. You will need to submit a separate entry and pay separate entry fees for each category submission.
Note: Entrants decide whether to enter their case into an Industry category or the Specialty categories or to enter the case into both Industry and Specialty categories. However, it is important when entering your case to ensure the entry is customised to speak to the specifics of each category it is entered in. Judges expect entries to be tailored for the category they are reviewing.
The Effie Awards Europe reserves the right to re-categorize entries, split/redefine categories and/or refuse entry any at any time.
Unsure in which category to enter in?
If you are unsure in which category to enter, please email Kasia Gluszak (kasia.gluszak@eaca.eu) with a brief description of the campaign you wish to enter followed by your questions.
