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.

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 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 on evidence of audience engagement as well as the innovative and human elements of the posts. The blog series should have run at least in part during 2023/24. 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 or 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 and financial advice sectors. The podcast must be targeting asset/wealth managers, IFAs and/or retail clients.

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 institutional investment space and the podcast must be targeting a pensions audience such as trustees, consultants, or pension scheme members.

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.

Marketing emails and display advertising are increasingly likely to be accessed and viewed on mobile phones, so it is critical for marketers to tailor content assets to the device: no PDF can cut it on a smartphone.

This award aims to recognise an effective mobile campaign that embraced content in a mobile format, for example online (smartphones) or via an app. The judges will be looking for creativity in a mobile format, content that has been designed or (re)created for a mobile campaign as well as an enhanced usability that helps demonstrate why the campaign was successful. This award is open to any campaign that ran in 2022/23 and was delivered to the financial adviser/wealth management and/or institutional audiences.

Have you used AI tools to create or enhance an innovative marketing campaign for the financial services audience? Or made use of AI technology to optimise a campaign and extend its reach?

This award aims to reward marketing teams or campaigns that have made the leap and actively used any form of AI to make their content resonate with the audience on a data level – from personalisation of campaigns and creating new types of interactive/virtual experiences to analysing audience data, enhancing SEO or conducting audience testing and more. Entries must be able to demonstrate how they utilised AI, why it was received and the difference it delivered to the campaign performance.

This award aims to highlight a content or marketing asset that made excellent use of data or research to help deliver enhanced insights. Your submission should be able to demonstrate how you used data or research to produce a data-driven campaign that offered something new to the audience. The use of data/market research should have made a demonstrable difference in the overall production, and helped facilitate better campaign performance as well. This award is open to all businesses operating in the asset management, institutional investment, or financial advice sectors.

The judges are looking for outstanding innovation within a marketing campaign for a new launch, existing product, or service in 2023/24. The campaign can be B2B or consumer oriented or focused on intermediaries or the provider community. We are looking for genuinely new and 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.

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 excellence in any event held in 23/24; whether a large-scale conference, or smaller fund or roadshow style event. The award-winning event will be able to demonstrate an engaging content plan with presentations and/or panel discussions or other educational content.

Key to winning this category will be innovation in terms of event set-up and style, alongside evidence of networking between company staff and customers. Your entry should detail how you facilitated direct communication with customers and helped them as well as empowered your sales representatives to network and results. Events should be face to face (hybrid events are welcome) and aimed at professional audiences from across both the institutional and retail investment and asset management industry rather than private investors. Entries from annual conference programmes are encouraged.

Social media has arrived in the investment marketing world, offering new powerful platforms for spreading the marketing word. Independent influencers are creating their own audiences on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, using their own content.

Smart marketers are orchestrating their staff’s social media reach – encouraging and organising widespread posting and reposting of content messaging. This award is for the organisation that can demonstrate outstanding use of social platforms, including (where appropriate) the use of external influencers as well as internal staff. The judges are looking for innovative approaches, proven impact and measurable results.

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 2023/24 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.

Modern digital marketing success is underpinned by technology platforms which automate processes, create personalised communications and UX and drive prospect engagement, change opinion and shape purchasing intent. Investment marketers are increasingly turning to technology solutions that can help them gain a competitive advantage. This award seeks to recognise excellence and innovation from marketing technology providers working with companies in the pensions and asset management industries. Have you helped marketers improve their performance? Can you demonstrate real impact? How are you transforming traditional marketing approaches in these financial services? The judges will be looking for innovative approaches that deliver demonstrable results. Entrants are advised to provide supporting, relevant case studies in the additional documentation.

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.

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.

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 pitches 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.

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 2023 or 2024.

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 2023 or 2024.

This award is open to marketers in a junior/mid-level (but not management) role working on institutional/pensions focused campaigns. The award is also open to 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.

This award is open to marketers in a junior/mid-level (but not management) role working on campaigns for the retail investment and financial advice sectors. The role can include 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.

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 award is for an individual working in the institutional and pension sector 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.

This award is for an individual working in marketing in the retail asset management or financial adviser sector 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.

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.