What makes an award-winning PR campaign or agency?

More than 500 PR and communication industry professionals descended on the Royal Lancaster London hotel this month for the CIPR Excellence Awards. Over the next few weeks on Influence, members of those winning teams will be sharing advice and thought leadership learnt from their own careers. 

Let’s get the ball rolling by discovering where the faces behind the winning campaigns drew their inspiration, and the secret to success from the winners of the best agency or team categories.

Where did the idea for your CIPR Excellence-award winning campaign come from?

Efetive Eguko, head of campaigns, Bank of England*, which won the best channel delivery award for its Mind Your Money Campaign: The idea came from listening to young people and understanding how they consume information. We used audience insight to select channels that would genuinely resonate with them and maximise message cut-through.

Gregor Hollerin, co-founder of Story Shop* which won the best use of media relations award for The Maclean Brothers Pacific Row: We knew the brothers would be on the ocean for an extended period and, from our research, that endurance campaigns typically struggle to hold the media’s attention. Many outlets cover the start and the finish, but there can be a long silence in between.

To raise £1m, we knew we had to bring the boat to life. We operated a live newsroom, constantly speaking on behalf of the brothers and finding new stories to tell from the ocean.

Away from the boat, we wanted to create big moments by persuading celebrities to call the brothers. That was the idea, and we knew we would have to work hard to make it happen. Once we got Mark Wahlberg on board, it all started to fall into place.

Jack Bedford, creative director, MHP Group, which won the best corporate and business communications campaign for Coca-Cola: The Bosses: The brief was to celebrate 125 years of Coca-Cola in Great Britain by recognising the role it has played in supporting local businesses. But rather than tell the brand's story, we (MHP Group) wanted to tell the stories of the people behind it.

Corner shops are often portrayed as struggling businesses, yet the reality is very different. They're resilient, entrepreneurial, and deeply woven into the fabric of their communities. Many have been passed down through generations, adapted through lockdowns and the decline of the high street, and continue to thrive today.

Coca-Cola has worked alongside these business owners for 125 years. The Bosses was about giving them the recognition they deserve, celebrating them not as underdogs, but as the entrepreneurs and community leaders they've always been.

James Hawkins, director of communications and external affairs, BBPA, which won the best change communication campaign award and the public affairs campaign award: The idea was born out of urgent necessity. Despite our messaging gaining traction, the 2025 Budget didn’t deliver the business rates discounts pubs needed, so we had to develop a campaign capable of securing a rare Budget U-turn. Our policy team and statistician demonstrated that, contrary to government messaging, bills for many pubs were set to soar. 

The challenge was turning complex data into simple, compelling arguments that would resonate with ministers, parliamentarians and the media. We built the campaign around those insights, combining robust evidence with a clear narrative. 

More broadly, I think ideas can come from anywhere, so I read widely and look for unexpected connections between what I'm seeing and the communications challenges in front of me. The best ideas are then stress-tested with colleagues and grounded in a deep understanding of the political landscape, what will resonate with stakeholders and what will genuinely cut through.

Kelly Lea, head of communications and engagement, UKCEH, which won the best Stem campaign award for the First UK Rice Trials: We were inspired by our science colleagues who came up with the idea of growing nine varieties of rice of in the Cambridgeshire fens as part of a wider research project that involved trialling several ‘future crops’ in response to climate change. Rice immediately jumped out as the hook needed to inspire great content for a truly integrated comms approach.

Ritoók Teréz, PR team lead, Mediator, which won the not-for-profit campaign and the healthcare and/or wellbeing campaign categories for Uncried Tears of Men: The idea came from a cultural insight we couldn't ignore. In Hungary, masculinity is still strongly associated with toughness. Many boys grow up hearing phrases like "boys don't cry" or "man up", learning from an early age that showing emotions is something to hide. At the same time, we know that emotional suppression can have serious consequences for mental health. The insight resonated strongly within our agency. Many of our male colleagues recognised the pressure to hide emotions from their own experiences, which made the creative process deeply personal. That tension became the starting point of the campaign. Building on that insight, our creative team developed the campaign's core creative concept. Together, we kept asking ourselves one simple question: if suppressed emotions are invisible, how could we make people see them?

Sara McCracken, founder of Sara McCracken Consulting, which won the environmental campaign award for 1.2 million People Acting for Climate and Nature: As an independent PR practitioner, I was brought in to lead communications for Great Big Green Week 2025, to make it mainstream.  We wanted to ensure that Great Big Green Week featured in media that you wouldn’t expect, to encourage as many people as possible to get involved.

The result was a media reach of over 64 million, in publications as diverse as Women’s Weekly, Horse and Hound and Waitrose Weekend. We also secured 14 ITV broadcasts, showcasing the brilliant actions people across the UK were taking for climate and nature.  Overall, 1.2 million people took part in over 5000 events.

Spoiler alert – I was brought back to lead the 2026 campaign, and the media reach and number of attendees are even higher!

Shona Mathew, business director, Kindred, which won the public sector campaign award for Probation in Verse: We discovered that Simon Armitage used to be a probation officer (and so did his dad), which opened a brilliant opportunity for us!

Tony Garner, managing director, Viva PR*, which won the small consultancy award for Hitting Six: We believed we had a good story to tell about the transformation of an agency. Thankfully, the judges did too.

Tim Reid, director and lead media trainer at Tim Reid Media, which won the social purpose campaign for the Chinook Justice Campaign: It was a significant challenge to come up with a new way to tell the story of a historic cover-up that, for the media, public, and politicians, was already considered settled. The Chinook disaster story was last told in 2011 when the pilots were cleared of blame, after a 16-year campaign by their families. So we refocused the injustice on the 47 children of the 29 people killed, drip-feeding each of their brand new stories week after week.

Trevor Webb, associate creative director at 23red, part of Capgemini, which won the education campaign award with Mumentum: Research revealed many barriers hindering working mothers from returning to work. We wanted to tap into the inner self-belief and dynamism that all mums who are keen to return to work have in their DNA and wrap it up into a sticky, simple platform thought... “Mumentum”. The OU is now helping to smash those barriers for mums everywhere.

Will Holloway, creative director, Smarts*, which won the consumer relations campaign award with Love in the Aisles for Asda: The campaign came about from reading about the longing that young people today have for finding love in person rather than on the apps. Supermarkets are one of the very few places left where people interact with strangers every week. Our red baskets were a practical but tongue-in-cheek solution to a real-world problem.

What does winning this award say about your team or agency?

Oli Bradley, managing director and founding partner, Words+Pixels, winner of the specialist agency of the year award. The agency is set up to work specifically with high-growth businesses at points of inflexion and change. Everything creative we do flows from understanding that moment properly, and it's not just about the big moments too - sustained media relations that respond to the pressures and ambition is our baseline for creative work and comms problem solving.

Rosy Mogg, assistant PR manager at Deloitte UK*, which won the award for best in-house PR team of the year (private sector): Our team were honestly thrilled to bring home the prize, as well as being there in person at the awards to celebrate together. The award is a powerful endorsement of our team’s work, and a real celebration of what we have delivered over the past year. Being able to showcase our win to the wider business has been great – it’s been very well received.

What are the most important values for an in-house PR team to have if it wants to become an award winner?

Rosy Mogg, assistant PR manager at Deloitte UK*: Brilliant teamwork is probably the most important value. There are 14 of us collaborating across all of our businesses and specialisms in external relations, working seamlessly as a team to deliver impactful campaigns and results for our stakeholders. Integrity, curiosity and accountability also underpin our work.

*These organisations are CIPR Corporate Affiliate members. Find out more about a CIPR corporate affiliate membership - open to groups of five or more.

Further reading

Read the next in this series: How do PR professionals find inspiration? And look out for more instalments in this series in the coming weeks.

The full list of the CIPR Excellence Awards winners is available on the CIPR website.