Blogs are a familiar building block of many content marketing strategies and for this award, judges will be looking for an excellent blog or blog series that has a human element and was able to successfully engage an audience through humour, personal stories, or a professional viewpoint. The blog or blog series should have been used as a form of communication to reach an audience in a more informal way than traditional marketing. The award will be based as much on the quality of the blogging and evidence of audience engagement as on the innovative and human element. The blog series should have run at least in part during 2022/23. This award is open to all businesses operating in the asset management, institutional investment, and financial advice sectors.

The judges for this award will be looking for compelling podcasts and podcast series, with an element of innovation in approach, structure, storytelling, use of music or sound, and/or distribution. The podcast should be relevant on both a professional and personal basis, and show evidence of successfully capturing the attention of customers. Please provide information on how the podcast was distributed and how you measured success (e.g., through listener data or content that was shared). This award is open to all businesses operating in the asset management, institutional investment, and financial advice sectors.

For this award, judges are looking for striking videos that captured the attention of customers and prospects. Entries should include great audio-visual production and stand out for their storytelling excellence. This award includes animated films, infographics, studio and/or location footage and embraces both commissioned and in-house projects. This award is open to all businesses operating in the asset management, institutional investment, and financial advice sectors.

What have you done in the last year to make your website more informative, relevant, easy to navigate (UX), and ensured visitors remain engaged? Entries to this category will be judged on how the business has used the website to stretch the capabilities of the internet and enhance their proposition. Entries will succeed if the site stands out from the crowd in terms of design, types of content published, excellent user experience and engagement with customers. The judges will be looking for evidence of increased traffic and visitor loyalty, as well as overall user engagement. This award is open to all businesses operating in the asset management, institutional investment, and financial advice sectors.

Sales and marketing teams in the B2B world are converging and the financial services industry is no exception. Digital content marketing and content consumption analytics are empowering sales teams to target their most engaged customers, better understand their interests, and formulate products and conversations accordingly – not just in key accounts but in the long tail. This award recognises outstanding alignment between sales and marketing teams. Judges are looking for evidence of sales teams acting on intelligence provided by marketing activity, and the consequent improvements in sales or return on investment.

 Entrants in this category should demonstrate the use of compelling content that has been able to engage stakeholders in the institutional and/or retail financial services market. The campaign must include content that has helped achieve commercial or other objectives as well as resonating with the target audience. In addition to demonstrating creativity and innovation, submissions should produce evidence (preferably quantifiable) of impact in achieving engagement, return on investment or similar. Please tell us the aim of the campaign, the distribution strategy, and how the results were measured.

This award celebrates smaller scale events organised to facilitate direct communication with customers on a personal level. As with the Large Customer Marketing Event award, judges will be looking for an engaging content plan, that educates and informs delegates whilst allowing for networking between sales representatives and existing and new customers. Event series (e.g., roadshows) are welcome to apply. Events should be face to face and aimed at professional audiences from across both the institutional and retail investment and asset management industry rather than private investors.

Marketing teams are often disrupted by change entirely outside of their control, most notably by the pandemic in recent years. 2022 also had its fair share of disruption and judges want to understand how has your organisation had to respond to change recently. Disruption could have occurred as a result of market turbulence, causing a shift in strategy, or via a merger, acquisition or a change in proposition or similar. Has your organisation had to run a marketing pivot and redrawn the marketing plan? The judges will be looking for how investment marketing teams made changes in their communications to professional audiences unexpectedly, how the team worked to understand the change and deliver an on-target campaign. Open to businesses working across the asset management, institutional investment, and financial advice sectors.

This award is for the best overall multi-channel campaign and can include advertising (print and digital), websites/digital experiences, and other content campaigns. The judges will be looking for evidence of campaigns that helped brand-building, increased fund-flows, and/or customer retention in the 2022/23 period. This award is open to all businesses operating in the asset management and financial services sector - or agencies working on their behalf - that have undertaken a marketing initiative, targeting retail consumers, intermediaries, or other businesses. The judges will be assessing innovation in the media, brand messaging concepts, as well as the final execution and results.

This award will judge teams that have made strides in promoting the brand they work for through marketing activities. The entry should demonstrate a major contribution to the success of the business they work for and show original thinking in their messaging. Entries should also offer evidence of how the team has adapted over the past year in terms of communication and innovation to produce outstanding campaigns and results. Judges are also looking for how the team relates to the business overall, how it is structured, the types of people in the team and why they work so well together. This award is open to all businesses operating in the retail, institutional and asset management and wealth management sectors.

Have you developed a new proposition (a product or service) or successfully redeveloped an existing one? It could be a fund, fund range, or other investment/advice solution or product. For this award, the judges are looking for evidence of innovative thinking behind the proposition. They want to understand how the proposition made a positive impact on the market, how it was marketed and how it has been received by customers and prospects. This award is open to any business operating in the asset management and investment sectors for a new launch of a new or significant development of an existing product.

The judges are looking for outstanding innovation within a marketing campaign for a new launch, existing product, or service in 2022/23. The campaign may be B2B or consumer oriented or focused on intermediaries or the provider community. We are looking for genuinely innovative ideas and execution either in message, creative approach, or media, and ideally supported with demonstrable ROI. The judges will compare entries featuring a single medium against campaigns spanning multiple media. This award is open to all businesses operating in the asset management, institutional investment, and financial advice sectors.

The investment industry is looking toward a more diverse and inclusive future. Amongst the greatest signifiers of this are emerging talents and future leaders who come from different background. This award looks to recognise organisations that have taken steps to change the make up of their marketing team specifically. The judges will be looking for evidence of concrete change that is helping organisations to rebalance the make-up of their marketing staff to drive change in terms of both business success and the creation of broader marketing campaigns. Open to businesses working across the asset management, institutional investment, and financial advice sectors.

This category is open to all marketing agencies and consultancies serving clients in the retail asset management and institutional investment sectors. The judges will be looking for evidence of how tangible results for clients were delivered, and how they expanded strategy rather than simply implemented client plans. The entry must also show how the agency exceeded set objectives and proactively contributed to overall business success too. Entrants are encouraged to support their application with a maximum of two case studies.

For this award, focused on the retail asset management and investment industry only, the judges will be looking for fresh thinking, effective communication of ideas, and evidence of genuine impact. The thought leadership entry can be published research, papers, blogs, market commentary in an organised series, or an academic paper, and entries can include videos and podcasts. This award is also a chance for academics and their institutions to showcase their work. The thought leadership work should have direct relevance to investments, for example: investment styles, how to achieve investment objectives, themes such as ESG, investment performance, new understanding of investor behaviour, pricing models, governance, or regulation. Content must have been published in 2022 or 2023.

For this award, focused on the institutional investment sector only, the judges will be looking for fresh thinking, effective communication of ideas, and evidence of genuine impact. The thought leadership entry can be published research, papers, blogs, market commentary in an organised series, or an academic paper, and entries can include videos and podcasts. This award is also a chance for academics and their institutions to showcase their work. The thought leadership work should have direct relevance to investments, for example: investment styles, how to achieve investment objectives, themes such as ESG, investment performance, new understanding of investor behaviour, pricing models, governance, or regulation. Content must have been published in 2022 or 2023.

This award is also open to all businesses, big or small, operating across the financial services market. The initiative may be B2B orientated or focused on intermediaries or the provider community. We are looking for genuinely new ideas and execution in a marketing activity sourced from anywhere in the business: what has broken you new ground in your marketing? How was the development of a proposition – a product or service – successfully taken to market in a unique way? The winner may be drawn from smaller firms such as advisers running local marketing campaigns or larger groups working at an international level. The judges will compare entries featuring a single medium against multimedia initiatives; the critical thing is evidence of new thinking: innovation either in message, creative approach, or media. Entries should be from within the investment world.

This award is for an individual working in marketing in the retail asset management or institutional investment sectors and at the beginning of their career but who has nonetheless shown exceptional promise and made a significant impact on the marketing output. The individual will have spent less than five years in the marketing profession. Judges will be looking for evidence of creativity and innovation within the team or a campaign and rapid progress in terms of career. Entries can be self-written or nominations on behalf of team members will also be accepted. Open to anyone working in marketing across the asset management, institutional investment, and financial advice sectors.

This award is open to marketers in a junior/mid-level (but not management) role within the company – including those working within the content discipline. To win this award the judges will be looking for a marketer/content marketer either at a junior or mid-to-senior level position who has demonstrated a genuinely fresh and innovative approach to their role. From building marketing campaigns that use innovative platforms to reach an audience, creating or commissioning content that has had demonstrable impact, to sharpening approaches based on ongoing learnings. Judges will be looking for individuals who can clearly demonstrate why their approach stands out, as well as explain how their strategy delivered results. Open to anyone working across the asset management, institutional investment, and financial advice sectors.

This award is open to marketers in senior/heads of role within the company. The judges are looking for marketing leaders whose teams have made a difference to the brand perception of their organisations amongst professional audiences, and/or can demonstrate return on investment. The judges will be interested to hear about innovative approaches, changes in team structures, use of digital, and evidence of a well-run, motivated, and high-performing teams. Open to anyone working across the asset management, institutional investment, and financial advice sectors.

This one-off award seeks to recognise an individual that has shown significant achievement over the years and made an outstanding contribution to the marketing profession, financial services industry, and/or the company they are part of. The winner will be someone who has directly engaged with the industry at large; helping to push marketing creativity and communication beyond the norm with strategies or events that scaled new heights. This award is not just about their career, but initiatives that go beyond business performance; such as leading the industry’s efforts to tackle wider societal issues that impact us all or a positive contribution to improving diversity. Those that have significantly influenced industry best practice and/or made a lifelong commitment to teaching, mentorship and leadership within marketing will also be highlighted.