Categories

Judges will be awarding a digital sales individual who has truly excelled in the sales function. Entrants should demonstrate a thorough strategic understanding of client business objectives by providing proactive, innovative solutions, benchmarked against clearly defined KPIs. This could be at a campaign level, or across an entire portfolio of clients.

Judges will be awarding a digital sales team that has excelled in the sales function. Entrants should demonstrate a thorough strategic understanding of client business objectives by providing proactive, innovative solutions, benchmarked against clearly defined KPI’s. This could be at a campaign level, or across an entire portfolio of clients.

Judges will be awarding a digital ad operations individual that has truly excelled in their role. Entrants should demonstrate a thorough strategic understanding of client business objectives by providing proactive, innovative solutions, benchmarked against clearly defined KPIs. This could be at a campaign level, or across an entire portfolio of clients.

Judges will be awarding a digital ad operations team that has excelled in their function. Entrants should demonstrate a thorough strategic understanding of client business objectives by providing proactive, innovative solutions, benchmarked against clearly defined KPIs. This could be at a campaign level, or across an entire portfolio of clients.

Judges will be awarding a digital-led campaign that has truly excelled through the use of Digital Audio, including live-streaming (shakeme, dynamic ads, personalisation), within its creative and media strategy, to increase performance, customer engagement, influence purchase behaviour and drive ROI. Entrants should demonstrate how they have developed their digital audio advertising strategy, including creative and innovative production (for a digital application, site, video, or campaign), to the execution, distribution, and promotion of the campaign. Excludes Podcasts.

 

 

Judges will be awarding a digital-led campaign that has truly excelled through the use of Digital Display within its creative and media strategy, to increase performance, customer engagement, influence purchase behaviour and drive ROI. Entrants should demonstrate how they have developed their digital display advertising strategy, including creative and innovative production (for a digital application, site, video, or campaign), to the execution, distribution, and promotion of the campaign. 

 

Judges will be awarding a digital-led campaign that has truly excelled through the utilisation of DOOH within its creative and media strategy, to increase performance, customer engagement, influence purchase behaviour and drive ROI. Entrants should demonstrate how they have developed their DOOH advertising strategy, including creative and innovative production (for a digital application, site, or campaign), to the execution, distribution, and promotion of the campaign. 

 

 

This award recognises outstanding digital campaigns that have leveraged the power of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to deliver measurable business impact. Judges are looking for strategic use of paid search to drive performance, customer engagement, conversion, and ROI. Entries should clearly articulate how SEM was integrated into the broader media and creative strategy, highlighting innovation in keyword planning, bidding, ad creative, landing experiences, and campaign optimisation from concept to execution.

 

 

 

Judges will be awarding a digital-led campaign that has truly excelled through the utilisation of Social (including, but not limited to, content creation, influencer marketing, advocacy and UGC, paid amplification, and community management) within its creative and media strategy, to increase performance, customer engagement, influence purchase behaviour and drive ROI. Entrants should demonstrate how they have developed their Social advertising strategy, including creative and innovative production (for a digital application, site, video, or campaign), to the execution, distribution, and promotion of the campaign.

 

 

Judges will be awarding a digital-led campaign that has truly excelled through the use of Video within its creative and media strategy, to increase performance, customer engagement, influence purchase behaviour and drive ROI. Entrants should demonstrate how they have developed their Video advertising strategy, including creative and innovative production (for a digital application, site, video, or campaign), to the execution, distribution, and promotion of the campaign.

 

 

Judges will be awarding a brand campaign that has truly excelled in its strategic approach (in which digital played a key role); through increased performance, customer engagement and purchase behaviour, to deliver a positive uplift against brand metrics.

 

 

Judges will be awarding a digital-led charity campaign (charity, appeal, fundraiser, or not-for-profit community programme) that has truly excelled in its strategic approach; through increased performance, customer engagement and purchase behaviour, to drive ROI and deliver outstanding results. 

Judges will be awarding an integrated digital exclusive campaign (one or more digital channels) that has truly excelled in its strategic approach; through increased performance, customer engagement and purchase behaviour, to drive ROI and deliver outstanding results. 

Judges will be awarding an integrated multi-channel campaign (one or more digital channels, and one or more offline channels) that has truly excelled in its strategic approach (in which digital played a key role); through increased performance, customer engagement and purchase behaviour, to drive ROI and deliver outstanding results. 

 

 

Judges will be awarding the best use of podcast advertising in New Zealand that demonstrates an understanding of the medium and how to best harness the power of audio and storytelling. Judges will evaluate the brands strategic approach, choice of creative and messaging. Judges will also look for measurable impact on brand awareness, ROI and overall measurable impact on brand metrics.

 

 

Judges will be awarding a retail/eCommerce led campaign that has truly excelled in its strategic approach; driving increased performance, customer engagement and consumer purchase behaviour, to drive ROI and deliver outstanding results.

 

 

POST-CAMPAIGN MEASUREMENT AND INFLIGHT OPTIMISATION.

Judges will be awarding how data and insights were used in an innovative manner to measure the impact of a campaign and/or to optimise/improve the inflight performance. Entrants should demonstrate how the use of data and insights led to campaign success.

 

 

PRE-CAMPAIGN AUDIENCE CREATION.

Judges will be awarding best use of data and insights to form a campaign target segment. The targeting approach must be truly data driven and innovative. Entrants should demonstrate how the audience segment, creation, or modelling, has led to campaign success.

 

 

Judges will be awarding a campaign that has excelled through the innovative application of generative AI technologies: including prompt engineering, data integration, and creative automation that enhanced insight, execution or measurable business outcomes. 

Judges will be awarding Best Use of Programmatic to a media buy behind a strong, digital-led campaign on any channel. Entrants should demonstrate clear results stemming from the use of Programmatic especially efficient tech, processes, spend, and effective placement.

 

 

This category celebrates excellence in organic search strategy. Judges will reward campaigns that showcase exceptional execution of SEO techniques to boost discoverability, traffic, and business outcomes. Whether through technical optimisation, content architecture, on-page enhancements, or authority-building, entries should demonstrate a clear link between SEO initiatives and performance metrics. Campaigns that innovatively combine strategy, tools, and content to improve long-term organic visibility and deliver measurable impact will stand out.

Judges will be awarding a digital-led campaign that has truly excelled through the application of technology to increase marketing effectiveness, customer engagement and ROI. Entrants should demonstrate how they have developed their ad tech/martech strategy using tools for customer data management, analytics, creative optimisation and delivery, machine learning, modelling, research, audience targeting and leveraging data. 

 

 

Digital Product or Service of the Year

This award will be presented to an entrant who can demonstrate innovation in developing, designing and/or adapting a product or service within New Zealand, (which could be implemented using a local or global platform), that has enabled New Zealand advertisers to deliver hugely successful digital advertising campaigns. Entrants should include how their product or service has been innovative over the past year and what makes them stand out from the crowd. 

Council Member of the Year

Judges will be awarding an individual who has contributed to growing and shaping the industry by participating in one or more of the IAB New Zealand Councils or Working Groups. This Award is community sourced, and we invite nominations for dedicated Council or Working Group members, however Council or Working Group members can also nominate themselves. There is no entry fee to enter this Award. 

Emerging Talent

Judges will be awarding an individual with less than three years of experience in the industry in a digital media role, who exemplifies ‘emerging talent’ by displaying commitment, motivation, willingness to learn, courage under pressure, self-confidence, organisation skills and a readiness to go the extra distance for both internal and external stakeholders.

Service to the Industry

Judges will be awarding an individual with long-standing industry service who has contributed to growing and shaping the digital industry over the past ten years. This Award is community sourced, and we invite nominations for extraordinary industry leaders. There is no entry fee to enter this Award. 

 

 

Media Publisher of the Year

Judges will be awarding a Media Publisher that can demonstrate innovation in developing and

implementing digital executions that have delivered successful campaigns, platform innovations and ROI.

Media Agency of the Year

 

Creative Agency of the Year

 

Best in Show

In 2024, Judges will be awarding Best in Show to a Gold winner from any of the five Award categories: Sales and Ad Operations, Channel Excellence, Campaign Effectiveness, Data and Effectiveness, or Grand Awards, that truly excels and stands out from the crowd.