Awards Categories 2024
The IAB Hong Kong Digital Awards are open to all creative, design, or media agencies, advertisers, independent parties, media sales houses, technology providers, vendors, platforms, IAB HK members, and non IAB HK members.
Entrants can start submitting entries from 1 September 2024 to 13 December 2024. Entrants can also enter one or several cases in one or several categories according to the campaign objective.
*Please note: All work, including global and regional campaigns, must have been presented to the public in Hong Kong between 1 January 2024 - 31 December 2024.
The 8 Award Categories for IAB Hong Kong Digital Awards 2024
1. Best Advocate of Social & Environmental Impact
This award recognizes organizations which delivered compelling content and marketing messages to raise awareness and influence the audience with call-to-action to address the pressing social/environmental issues facing HK or globally (Refer to the 17 SDG goals published by the United Nations. Examples for HK: poverty alleviation, mental health, social inclusion, etc., examples for global: climate action, long-term sustainability, etc.)
Entrants are expected to define the social/environmental issue(s) addressed by the campaign and justify its significance to our society, thereby leading to the design of the campaign content and messaging. Best to provide metrics that showcase actual social/environmental impact driven by the campaign.
Impact can be measured by:
- Visual/ Audio impression
- Core message (Consistency across judges gets higher score)
- Educational value (What new information is shared)
- Call to action (Any motivations to do something differently tomorrow)
Weighting
- 30% Strategy
- 20% Execution
- 30% Innovation
- 20% Results
2. Best Branding Campaign
This award recognizes campaigns that effectively establish a meaningful connection between the brand and its audience, thereby elevating brand love. Entrants are required to demonstrate the significant impact their campaign had on the brand and provide evidence of improved brand metrics such as awareness, equity, and favorability via brand lift study, any brand term search volume uplift, or any information from the brand study if there is any.
Weighting
- 30% Strategy
- 20% Execution
- 30% Creativity
- 20% Results
3. Best Use of Content Innovation
This award recognizes campaigns that utilize innovative content to generate engagement with audiences to the brand. The campaigns may include various forms of content, such as video, influencer marketing, social media marketing, branded content, AR/VR technology, web3/metaverse, O2O experiences, etc. Entries are expected to showcase how their campaign have uplifted creativity in presenting the content, and used content to create value for the brand, drive consumer engagement and deliver notable business results.
Weighting
- 30% Strategy
- 25% Execution
- 25% Innovation
- 20% Results
4. Best Use of Data & Insights 
This award recognizes marketing campaigns that demonstrate exceptional use of data and analytics to drive strategy and achieve valuable business outcomes. Submissions should showcase how the campaign leveraged a range of data sources - including first-party CRM data, third-party insights, and data partnerships - to inform decision-making and power the campaign's success.
Explain how the campaign team analyzed the data to uncover meaningful insights that informed the strategic direction. Demonstrate how these insights shaped targeting, messaging, channel selection, and other key campaign elements.
Provide clear, measurable evidence of the campaign's success in driving valuable business outcomes, such as increased brand awareness, customer acquisition, sales uplift, or return on investment. Quantify the impact and link it directly to the data-driven approach.
Highlight any innovative uses of data and analytics that push the boundaries of data-driven marketing. Discuss lessons learned and best practices that could benefit the wider industry.
Weighting
- 30% Strategy
- 20% Execution
- 20% Innovation
- 30% Results
5. Best Use of Omnichannel Strategy
This award recognizes organization that has successfully implemented an omnichannel campaign or promotion and delivered exceptional customer experiences holistically with significant business outcomes.
The campagin will need to demonstrate excellence in the following areas
- A seamless customer journey and consistency of brand messages across multiple marketing channels
- Use of data and consumer insights such as consumer preferences and behavior to interact with or fulfill the customer's needs and interests
- KPIs setting to monitor and improve the whole campaign effectiveness
Ad impact, targeting, personalization and cross-channel campaign results will be evaluated by the judges.
Weighting
- 30% Strategy
- 20% Execution
- 20% Innovation
- 30% Results
6. Best Use of Performance Marketing
This award recognizes organizations who implemented effective performance marketing campaign strategies, supported with rigorous data usage, measurements and clear business metrics to demonstrate quantitative impact to the return on investment delivered by the campaigns.
Entrants are expected to clearly illustrate their performance marketing campaign strategies, campaign structures across channels, and performance monitoring tools (if any). They should also provide metrics to quantify incremental business impact, such as ROI, CPA, the number of new customers, lead generation for trials, and new users.
Weighting
- 25% Strategy
- 10% Execution
- 25% Innovation
- 40% Results
7. Best Use of Technology
This award recognizes marketing initiatives that effectively leverage current or emerging technologies to achieve specific business objectives and deliver substantial results. It focuses on technologies used across various marketing functions, including awareness building, automation, targeting, lead generation, personalization, and measurement, all aimed at enhancing the consumer journey.
Entrants should present their innovative applications of technology that optimize and personalize customers’ experience with the brand, or improve back-of-house operation. This includes technologies that streamline internal processes, enhance data management, and improve operational workflows. By doing so, these initiatives boost overall marketing performance and drive exceptional business outcomes.
Weighting
- 25% Strategy
- 25% Execution
- 30% Innovation
- 20% Results
8. Most Efficient Use of Budget Campaign
This award recognizes campaigns executed with a budget below HK$500,000. The budget should cover all direct campaign costs, including design, production, media, PR, talent fee and others, while excluding permanent staff salaries, premises, overheads, and other general business expenses. Judges will evaluate the overall campaign strategy and execution to achieve the greatest impact within a limited budget.
Entrants are expected to demonstrate how the campaign clearly articulates its strategic approach to addressing business challenges, the effective use of employed solutions, and how the execution and results support the overall campaign objectives, all within the specified budget.
Weighting
- 20% Strategy
- 30% Execution
- 30% Innovation
- 20% Results
Best Digital Campaign of the Year 
The winner of Best Digital Campaign of the Year must be a Gold winner in one of the eight categories and the judge lead of each category will vote and select the winner of this prestigious award. There will be no submission required for this category.
