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CATEGORIES

Creative Agency of the Year

Great is great; no other rules apply for this category. This award will be given to the agency whose totality of work in the past year rose above. Again, budgets and channels are not the thing here. The consistent level of breakthrough, rise-above creativity is.

In-House Agency of the Year

The ACEs recognize the amazing work being done by in-house agencies and teams. Please note that this award is for the year’s body of work, not one-offs. Same rules apply as for the Creative Agency of the Year award.

Powerful Pivots

In recognition of the extraordinary efforts B2B marketers and agencies made this past year to spin up new campaigns, switch gears from planned activities to more appropriate ones, emphasize empathy and customer support, this special category recognizes creativity and agility that helped businesses power through the pandemic.

Digital/Technology Powered Experiences 

If your brand of creativity includes tech-powered, mind-blowing experiences, this is your category. Immersive experiences. VR/AR/MR experiences. 360-degree video experiences. All-of-the-above and then-some experiences. This is always among the most exciting ACE categories!

The Craft Categories

The ACE jury believes that craft is back! Greater love is being given to the core crafts – art direction, writing, photography – even (especially!) if used in innovative ways. The ACEs recognize them all. Love the craft that goes into your work? Then enter. Let’s raise the game for all B2B marketers. Please note the three distinct sub-categories below.

Art Direction: For visual expression including concept and execution, regardless of form or function. Submit three pieces of work you personally art directed to be considered.

Copywriting: Persuasive, insightful, moving, hilarious. Submit three pieces of your work to be considered.

Photography/Illustration: Brilliant original images that enliven brand, campaign or digital initiatives. Submit three pieces of work to be considered.

Can Marketing Change the World?

State Street Global Advisors’ ‘Fearless Girl’ sets the standard. That’s what we’re after with this award. Work that is culturally significant with societal impact. B2B marketing that matters!

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Campaigns

ABM is all grown-up and ready to shine in the spotlight on the big stage that is the ACEs. Did your creative ABM campaigns match the hype? Our judges are eagerly awaiting your awesome ABM submissions.

Integrated Marketing Campaigns

These are your biggest, multi-faceted, multichannel campaigns that have moved the needle in a big way. They are, naturally enough, based on big ideas with a range of executions to drive impact and results. Enter your best ACE-worthy campaigns.

$1 Million Budget and Over: Budget includes agency services, media and production.

$250,000-$1 Million Budget: Budget includes agency services, media and production.

Under $250,000 Budget: Budget includes agency services, media and production.

Demand Generation Campaigns

Demand generation is the core of B2B marketing. Always has been. Always will be. Whether product, solution or issue-driven, enter your most creatively effective single or multi-channel campaigns for jury consideration.

Social Media Campaigns

In the age of paid, earned, owned and shareable media, enter your social campaigns utilizing one or multiple channels – from Facebook to LinkedIn to Twitter to Instagram. This is the fastest-growing ACE category – and there’s little wonder why!

Digital Display Campaign (All Formats Including Video)

Digital display deserves its day in the sun. Here’s where to shine. Banners, video, rich media, page takeovers and other formats. Single or multiple executions. All comers welcome. But a word of caution: we’re looking for the great display work that’s treated with extreme creative love.

Broadcast Advertising

In our all-digital-all-the-time world, there remains a time and place for B2B to go broadcast. In fact, there remain a lot of times and places as satellite radio and precision-targeted TV make these channels more efficient. Let’s face it, who doesn’t love making a movie?

Radio - Single Spot & Campaign: Enter your best spot or multi-spot campaign.

TV - Single Spot: Enter your best spot, any length.

TV - Campaign: Enter your best campaign.

Out of Home

Some of the best work that’s out there is...out there. Digital…airport…elevator…commuter…if it’s outstanding out of home, enter here.

Print Advertising

Old school? It’s a great school and still highly relevant across plenty of B2B sectors. David Ogilvy did well enough with it to lead an industry and land a chateau. Here’s B2B creatives’ shot to follow in his famous footsteps.

Single Ad: Enter your best print ad.

Campaign: Enter your best print ad campaigns.

Content Marketing

Content is king, but these days it’s also the joker. The good stuff is great. The rest just adds to the noise. Here’s to the good stuff! All content marketing / branded content work is judged in this category – from e-books to industry reports, content platforms to blogs and vlogs.

Individual Piece: Enter your best content marketing piece. All formats accepted.

Multiple Piece Program/Campaign: Enter your best multi-piece content marketing program.

Corporate Image

Logo Design: The boundless creativity displayed by logo creators is truly amazing. This is foundational work that engenders pride within organizations and love (hopefully!) on the outside. If you win, you have a lifetime dispensation from the “can you make it just a little bigger” conversation.

Design System: Beautiful, artful, strategic brand design organized into a true system so that all audiences and stakeholders can make the design their own. That’s all we’re asking for!

Brand Name: Brand naming is as hard and rewarding as it gets in the creative world. Get just rewards for your hard and brilliant work.

Websites

By virtue of IA and UX, visual design, content quality, usability, smart use of personas – and magic – these are the B2B sites that stand apart from competitors and stand out among the world’s best websites.

Microsites

Smaller than a website and bigger than a breadbasket. Enter your slickest microsites whether used for product launches, campaigns, thought leadership and more.

Video

The growing use of video is one of the primary trends in B2B marketing, making video well deserving of its own category. Showcase your best video work here.

Short-Form: Up to 2 minutes (don’t worry, we won’t hold you to the second!). Explainer videos. Educational videos. Corporate videos. Campaign-related videos.

Longer-Form: Thought leadership videos. Documentary style videos. Videos that are richer and deeper in terms of themes and contents.

Event/Trade Show Marketing

Booth Design/Experience/Campaign: This category is for the trade show exhibits and experiences that stand out by virtue of design, differentiation and accompanying marketing efforts. Whether live shows prior to the pandemic or virtual trade show initiatives since then, enter your best work that drove engagement and impact.

Proprietary Virtual and Face-to-Face Events: These two categories are for brands’ own events targeting internal stakeholders, customers and prospects, influencers and industries. Powerful themes and content, stand-out experiences and outstanding promotion determine our winners. This year, close attention will be paid to virtual events – the most outstanding, high-impact pivots.

External/Customer Facing: Enter this sub-category for events focused on customers, prospects, partners, industry thought leadership, etc.

Internal: Enter this sub-category for events such as annual sales meetings, employee summits, etc.

Direct Mail

What’s old is effective again. Whether for ABM or more broad-based comms, DM is cutting through. Enter your best direct: self-mailers, 3D mailers, in-mail video, etc. There’s lots of innovation going on. Let’s see it!

Sales Enablement (Analog & Digital)

What have you done to keep the sales team closely connected with customers amid all the challenges sales organizations have faced? Enter your best sales enablement systems, content, tools, collateral, apps and more. Entries can be digital, physical or both.

Internal Activation

Don’t work on the inside, won’t work on the outside. Enter your best campaigns or initiatives for launching, promoting or enhancing your brand and campaigns among employees. This category includes everything from sales kick-offs to brand launches to employee engagement programs.

B2B2C Campaigns

In financial services, pharma/healthcare, and plenty of other categories, B2B has a significant “C” component. This category is for business-to-business campaigns that also encompass consumer audiences.

Agency Self-Promotion

In a massively competitive market, the great agencies aren’t sitting still. This category is for the promotional and thought leadership campaigns that are setting the B2B marketing agenda. Big idea campaigns that are moving the industry forward? Apply here!

 Best Concept Killed By Client 

Enter the best creative ideas you had this year that were never saw the light of day. The client may have been clueless, but our judges sure aren’t.

The “Clausen” Best in Show Award

You can’t enter this one. From among all the amazingly great work, our jury will select the amazing-est! Our best in show award is named for Ned Clausen, long-time Executive Director of BMA NYC who helped make the ACE Awards the preeminent creative awards in all of B2B.