The Media Leader Awards 2024 are open for entries

The Media Leader Awards 2024 are open for entries.

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.

Importantly, mindful that 2023 was tough year economically for the industry, entry fees have been frozen this year.

As well as being endorsed by the leading trade publication for the business of media, The Media Leader Awards stand out for having a uniquely curated jury panel made up of leaders representing the sector’s major trade bodies, as well as rising stars and voices for change, to reflect the full breadth of diversity that exists in media and advertising today.

The Media Leader is proud to have created three special categories 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.

Revealed: Winners of The Media Leaders Awards 2023

Ceremony at our first Media Leaders’ Summit

Winners of The Media Leader Awards will be announced at a ceremony in London in June during the inaugural 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.

In response to very popular demand, The Media Leaders’ Summit will also reprise the Future 100 Club debate, in which four members of The Media Leader‘s Future 100 Club present their manifestos to leaders in the room.

And, new for this year, the Future 100 Club member whose manifesto is judged to be the best will take home the Future Leader Award.

WPP CEO Mark Read: ‘I wouldn’t be here now if it were not for Jeremy Bullmore’

Oakes said: “This industry has too many awards. That’s because awards have become an industry itself and this is damaging to what should be one of the most worthwhile things we do in media and advertising — take the time and space to really think about what ‘best-in-class’ looks like and celebrate that among our peers.

“That’s why we at The Media Leader only run one awards scheme each year, in addition to supporting the Adwanted Media Research Awards run by our colleagues at Adwanted Connected. At the heart of this publication’s mission is to promote excellence and diversity, even if it stops us from doing the easy, short-term thing commercially.

“This is particularly important after a tough year for the sector. So we’re not launching any additional award categories and we’re not raising our entry fees.”

Early bird deadline for entries is 5 April, while the standard deadline for entry is 12 April. Judging will take place in May.

For more information go to our awards site. More details will be revealed soon, including key dates and our refreshed judging line-up.

For any queries and to enter, please email [email protected].