The Media Leader Awards 2024
A hat trick of media owners and another trio of agencies feature prominently among the media and advertising companies shortlisted for The Media Leader Awards 2024.
JCDecaux, Mail Metro Media, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe, Sky and WPP are among the companies whose leadership teams and leaders are nominated for The Media Leader‘s only dedicated awards scheme.
Now in their fourth year, the awards are the ultimate accolade that celebrates media leadership in the UK and internationally.
The Media Leader powers these awards as part of its mission to celebrate best-in-class thinking and execution in UK advertising and media today. Three special categories were created last year to celebrate and reward excellent in sustainability, trust and talent — the three challenges that the industry has asked The Media Leader to champion.
Those three awards are among 16 categories in total, including the two prestigious Grands Prix: Media Leader of the Year, which was won last year by Digital Cinema Media CEO Karen Stacey for outstanding achievements within a challenging year for cinema, while the Judges’ Special Choice Award was posthumously awarded to advertising legend Jeremy Bullmore, who died last year.
Judges include The Media Leader editor-in-chief Omar Oakes, as well as senior figures who run industry trade bodies and groups that push for positive change in the industry.
This year’s Grand Prix will be announced at the awards ceremony during The Media Leader Summit on 26 June.
The shortlist
Leadership Team of the Year
Bicycle
Mindshare
Starcom
The Goodnet
Leader of the Year: Agency
EssenceMediacom — Kate Rowlinson
Havas Media — Patrick Affleck
Medialab — Marcus Orme
MG OMD — Natalie Bell
Leader of the Year: Media Owner
Immediate Media — Cath Waller
JCDecaux — Dallas Wiles and Chris Collins
Mail Metro Media — Dominic Williams
Sky Media — Brett Aumuller
Leader of the Year: Technology
Freewheel — Thomas Bremond
Ogury — Emily Barfuss
Ozone — Craig Tuck
ViewersLogic — Ronny Golan
Leader of the Year: Advertiser
Arla Foods — Rob Edwards
Heineken — Olya Dyachuk
Lloyds Bank — Vicky Handley
Future Media Leader of the Year
Mail Metro Media — Samantha Eales
LG Ads — Helen Keelan
MG OMD — Aaron Watkins
Talon — Nicola Fox
International Leader of the Year
Atomic 212 — Claire Fenner
Croud — Kris Tait
Value Retail — Ana Dias
Company of the Year: Advertiser
Reckitt
Specsavers
Uber
Unilever
Company of the Year: Agency
MG OMD
Starcom
Wavemaker
Zenith
Company of the Year: Media Owner
Digital Cinema Media
JCDecaux
Mail Metro Media
Uber
Company of the Year: Technology
Criteo
LiveRamp
ViewersLogic
Excellence: Sustainability
JCDecaux
Sky Media
The Goodnet
Excellence: Talent
EssenceMediacom
GroupM
Talon
Zenith
Excellence: Trust in Media
MG OMD
Ozone
UM
Grand Prix: Media Leader of the Year
To be announced. The overall Media Leader of the Year is selected by our judges from the five senior leadership category winners (Agency, Media Owner, Technology, Advertiser and International). The judges will make their choice based on who they believe has embraced and championed excellence within the organisation, whether that comes from a collection of decisions and strategies that resulted in a positive and successful outcome or a single but significant decision that showcased their leadership qualities.
Grand Prix: Judges’ Special Choice Award
This award will go to someone who is not necessarily working directly in the media industry, but who has inspired leaders in our industry and deserves recognition for the work they do to influence and champion better business practice. Each judge can nominate one person they believe deserves this accolade and their fellow judges will vote for who they believe to be most worthy.
WPP CEO Mark Read: ‘I wouldn’t be here now if it were not for Jeremy Bullmore’
The Media Leaders’ Summit
Winners of The Media Leader Awards will be announced at a ceremony in London on 26 June during The Media Leaders’ Summit.
The summit is our summer companion event to the invite-only The Year Ahead, in which the UK’s most influential decision-makers in advertising and media come together to discuss the sector’s key challenges and solutions.
Last year’s ceremony featured a fireside chat with WPP CEO Mark Read and The Media Leader editor Omar Oakes, before the five previous winners of the Leadership Awards took part in an impromptu panel discussing best practice in leadership.
Adwanted UK is the trusted delivery partner for three essential services which deliver accountability, standardisation, and audience data for the out-of-home industry.
Playout is Outsmart’s new system to centralise and standardise playout reporting data across all outdoor media owners in the UK.
SPACE is the industry’s comprehensive inventory database delivered through a collaboration between IPAO and Outsmart.
The RouteAPI is a SaaS solution which delivers the ooh industry’s audience data quickly and simply into clients’ systems.
Contact us for more information on SPACE, J-ET, Audiotrack or our data engines.