OMD UK wins Grand Prix for McDonald’s campaign at Newsworks Awards 2024
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OMD UK took home both the top prize and Best Display Campaign for its fantastic McDonald’s content partnership with News UK, taking readers back to the best of 1990s pop culture to highlight McDonald’s long-standing commitment to quality beef.
Claire Sadler, chief marketing and fundraising officer at the British Heart Foundation and chair of judges at the awards, commented: “Chairing the Newsworks Awards has been a fantastic experience. We received an outstanding calibre of entries this year, which means our winners truly represent the very best of news brand advertising. The Grand Prix winner was supported by all judges as a standout example of brilliant advertising work.
“OMD UK and McDonald’s were worthy winners of the Grand Prix this year. It was a brilliant marriage of creative idea and excellent media execution, demonstrating not only a clear and important role for news brands but also impressive business results. Congratulations to OMD UK, McDonald’s and all this year’s winners.”
Elsewhere, Nationwide took home Advertiser of the Year via its agency Wavemaker UK for a momentous 18 months that saw the company supercharge its news brand investment and turn its business from passive into powerhouse. Meanwhile, EssenceMediacom and Boots took a hat trick, with the judges awarding them Best Contextual Campaign, Best Tactical Campaign and Most Effective Campaign.
As well as the Grand Prix, OMD UK was also recognised for its British Gas “Trunks Hung Up” campaign, which honoured recently retired Olympian Tom Daley during the Olympics in Paris. The ad not only took Highly Commended in the Best Tactical Campaign category, but also won the Newsworks Awards’ first-ever Ad of the Year. The winner was part of a shortlist of Newsworks’ nine Ad of the Month winners from January to October, with OMD UK and British Gas chosen by the industry in a two-week public poll.
Recent years have seen a significant increase in news brand content partnerships, with advertisers recognising their power, value and flexibility across publisher’s multiplatform portfolios. To celebrate more of these fantastic campaigns, the Best Content Partnership category was split into three budget tiers for 2024.
Wavemaker UK took home both the Medium Budget award for its Keep Britain Tidy partnership with The Sun and the Large Budget award for Morrisons’ “More from Market Street”, with the Small Budget award going to EssenceMediacom Scotland for Quality Meat Scotland.
Best Social Impact Campaign was won by UM London for its work with Campaign Against Living Miserably and MoneySuperMarket around men’s mental health and the cost-of-living crisis, while Mindshare UK account executive Kai Nicholls was named the winner of 2024’s Rising Star award. The judges were impressed by his infectious passion for news brands and the significant impact he has made acting as an ambassador for journalism among his colleagues.
Speaking on judging day, Zurich Insurance chief customer officer Richard Pash said: “I’ve really enjoyed being a judge at this year’s Newsworks Awards. There’s been great discussion, fantastic entries and a really good melting pot of lots of different creative and media ideas all brought together.”
Newsworks CEO Jo Allan commented: “This year, we’ve seen agencies and brands lean in to the truly multiplatform nature of news brands — publishers are constantly innovating their offerings for readers and brands alike.
“The campaigns winning this year are testament to the brilliant and creative collaboration between agencies, advertisers, commercial and editorial teams.
“Thank you to all those who entered campaigns this year and congratulations to all those who won.”
See our full list of winners and Highly Commended campaigns below. Case studies can be found here.
List of winners
Best Display Campaign
Winner: McDonald’s, “Keep Up with the Times”, OMD UK
Highly Commended: Nationwide, “Branch Promise”, Wavemaker UK
Best Content Partnership — Small Budget
Winner: Quality Meat Scotland, “Meat & 2.0”, EssenceMediacom Scotland
Highly Commended: Encona (Grace Foods), “Encona Guardian Partnership”, Goodstuff Communications
Best Content Partnership — Medium Budget
Winner: Keep Britain Tidy, “Butt Out: Cleaning UK Streets of Cigarette Butts with Keep Britain Tidy and The Sun”, Wavemaker UK
Best Content Partnership — Large Budget
Winner: Morrisons, “More from Market Street with Mail Metro Media & Good Food”, Wavemaker UK
Best Tactical Ad
Winner: Boots’ Opticians, “See Every Detail”, EssenceMediacom
Highly Commended: British Gas, “Trunks Hung Up”, OMD UK
Best Contextual Campaign
Winner: Boots, “Boots UK in partnership with Reach Battling the Unpredictable British Weather with an Always On Contextual Strategy”, EssenceMediacom
Highly Commended: MSI Reproductive Choices, “Choose Choice Campaign”, Craft Media
Most Effective Campaign
Winner: Boots, “A Christmas Tale of Effectiveness: Unwrapping How News Brands Contributed to a Record-Breaking Christmas”, EssenceMediacom
Highly Commended: Coventry Building Society, “Wonderfully Decent Monday”, Notorious Communications
Best Social Impact Campaign
Winner: Campaign Against Living Miserably and MoneySuperMarket, “Money Talks”, UM London
Rising Agency Star of the Year
Winner: Kai Nicholls, Mindshare UK
Ad of the Year
Winner: British Gas, “Trunks Hung Up”, OMD UK
Advertiser of the Year
Winner: Nationwide, “Transforming Nationwide”, Wavemaker UK
Grand Prix
Winner: McDonald’s, “Keep Up with the Times”, OMD UK