Newsworks Awards 2024: Shortlist revealed

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The Newsworks Awards recognise and reward the very best news brand advertising, as well as honouring impressive young agency talent and the ultimate advertiser of the year. 

This year’s shortlist features a broad range of agencies, brands and campaigns. News brands’ enduring trust with readers — and the halo effect they achieve for advertisers — remained a key theme among the entries, as well as their contextual importance when it comes to engaging consumers in quality environments.

2024’s submissions also leaned further in to news brands’ multiplatform narrative strengths, making extensive use of publishers’ full range of platforms and commercial opportunities — from print display and digital native campaigns to newsletters, audio, video and social media.

Our esteemed judging panel of brand and agency leaders narrowed down a fantastic set of entries to our final shortlist. The jury was chaired by Claire Sadler, chief marketing and fundraising officer at the British Heart Foundation.

Sadler commented: “It’s been an absolute pleasure to chair the Newsworks Awards this year. We’ve seen some fantastic examples of agencies and advertisers harnessing insight-led planning to produce fantastic multiplatform news brand campaigns. Congratulations to all those who made the final shortlist.”

The winners, including a Grand Prix Campaign of the Year chosen by Sadler, will be revealed at an awards party at London’s 12th Knot rooftop bar on Tuesday 3 December.

While the judges have narrowed down their shortlist, the winner of the inaugural Ad of the Year prize has yet to be decided. With a shortlist comprising the nine winners of this year’s “Ad of the Month” polls, the industry will now vote for the winner in a two-week public poll. Votes will close on Monday 25 November and every vote cast will be entered into an Apple Watch prize draw.

Jo Allan, Newsworks’ CEO, said: “Congratulations to all those who have been shortlisted for this year’s Newsworks Awards — it’s been another outstanding year of entries.

“Multiplatform news brands in 2024 are constantly innovating, so I’m pleased to see so many submissions making use of a wide range of print and digital news brand formats to produce some brilliant campaigns.

“I’m also delighted that news publishers’ reputation for trust and effectiveness for advertisers remain key themes and I’m looking forward to celebrating with this year’s entrants at our awards party.”

Alongside Sadler on the judging panel were senior industry figures including OMD UK CEO Suzy Ryder, Mindshare CEO Jem Lloyd-Williams, the7stars managing partner Helen Rose, Zurich chief customer officer Richard Pash and Merlin Entertainments marketing director Sue Stephenson.

See the final shortlist below.

Best Display Campaign

• Co-op “Using the Power of News Brands to Re-introduce Co-op to the nation” — Carat
• OVO Energy “OVO Beyond” — Goodstuff Communications
• Channel 4 “Partygate” — OMD UK
• McDonald’s “Keep Up with the Times” — OMD UK
• PepsiCo/Doritos “Doritos Silent” — OMD UK
• Nationwide “Branch Promise” — Wavemaker UK

Best Content Partnership — Small Budget

• Quality Meat Scotland “Meat & 2.0” — EssenceMediacom Scotland
• Encona (Grace Foods) “Guardian Partnership” — Goodstuff Communications

Best Content Partnership – Medium Budget

• British Red Cross “Guardian Partnership” — Havas Media Network
• John Lewis “Kids Fash-Fun with News UK” — MG OMD
• McDonald’s “Keep Up with the Times” — OMD UK
• Jet2holidays “Indulgent Escapes: The Fashion of Travel” — Wavemaker UK
• Keep Britain Tidy “Butt Out: Cleaning UK Streets of Cigarette Butts with The Sun” — Wavemaker UK

Best Content Partnership — Large Budget

• Movember “The Real Face of Men’s Health” — Bicycle London
• BT “A Partnership that Means Business” — GroupM
• Activision “The Truth Lies — Call of Duty: Black Ops 6” — Mediahub
• Covid-19 Inquiry “How News UK helped the Covid Inquiry get the Nation Talking” — MG OMD
• Morrisons “More from Market Street with Mail Metro Media & Good Food” — Wavemaker UK

Best Tactical Ad

• Mastercard “We Still Believe” — Carat UK
• Boots Opticians “See Every Detail” — EssenceMediacom
• Ocado “Doing What No One Else in the Retail Category Has Ever Done with The Ocado Price Promise” — Hearts & Science UK
• British Gas “Trunks Hung Up” — OMD UK

Best Contextual Campaign

• MSI Reproductive Choices “Choose Choice Campaign” — Craft Media
• Boots “Battling the Unpredictable British Weather with an Always On Contextual Strategy” — EssenceMediacom
• L’Oréal Paris “YOU Look Great” — EssenceMediacom
• Quaker Oats “Serve Up Porridge for Team GB” — OMD UK
• SolpaOne “ONE TWO FREE, to be Your Best Self: Launching SolpaOne with The Standard” — Publicis Unlimited, SPP Media

Most Effective Campaign

• Boots UK “A Christmas Tale of Effectiveness: Unwrapping How News Brands Contributed to a Record-Breaking Christmas” — EssenceMediacom
• Not On The High Street “Don’t Gift Guide” — Hearts & Science UK
• Coventry Building Society “Wonderfully Decent Money” — Notorious Communications
• McDonald’s “Keep Up with The Times” — OMD UK
• SolpaOne “ONE TWO FREE, to be Your Best Self: Launching SolpaOne with The Standard” — Publicis Unlimited and SPP Media

Rising Agency Star of the Year

• Kai Nicholls — Mindshare UK
• Alex Groom — PHD
• Ryan Smith — Wavemaker UK

Best Social Impact Campaign

• Paddy Power “Big 180 Campaign” — EssenceMediacom
• Giffgaff “Leading the Way in Sustainable Mobile Connectivity by Harnessing the Storytelling Power of News Brands” — MG OMD
• Currys “Making Sustainability Childs Play — with News UK” — Spark Foundry and SPP Media
• Campaign Against Living Miserably and MoneySuperMarket “Money Talks” — UM London

Advertiser of the Year

• Flutter Entertainment “Flutter Entertainment and Mail Metro Media” — EssenceMediacom
• Sainsbury’s “Advertiser of the Year” — PHD
• Asda “Advertiser of the Year” — Spark Foundry
• Nationwide “Transforming Nationwide” — Wavemaker UK
• Paramount+ “More than Headlines: How Paramount+ Won with News Brands” — Wavemaker UK

Ad of the Year

• B&Q — Dentsu X
• Pot Noodle — Mindshare UK
• British Gas — OMD UK
• Auto Trader — The Specialist Works
• Samsung — Starcom
• Smart Energy GB — T&Pm
• Cadbury — the7stars
• Hamptons — Total Media
• Jet2Holidays — Wavemaker Manchester