Inside the year’s best experiential marketing campaigns
Event marketers landed on the other side of the pandemic poised for a renaissance when economic hurdles began threatening to rain on the industry’s parade. Purse strings may have been cinched as a consequence, but as always, brands and agencies pulled through in brilliant form—and the campaigns honored in the 21st annual Ex Awards are solid proof.
The industry’s oldest and most prestigious recognition program this year honored leading brands and agencies across 34 categories, with campaigns reflective of today’s event landscape—and the strategies best suited for it. Among the common threads that contributed to their success in this lean but mean year: Treating content and culture as currency, and understanding that hosting a fun experience and making a meaningful impact don’t have to—and shouldn’t be—mutually exclusive. And perhaps above all, there was a clear focus on engaging attendees as individuals, not part of the masses, in an era when personalization is non-negotiable.
Take Meta’s Small Business Studios program, which offered SMBs a variety of workshops and mainstage presentations to choose from based on their needs and interests, as well as one-on-one consultations with a professional product photographer. Or the It’s Her Shot event by DICK’s and Nike, during which young female athletes were encouraged to “make the experience their own” with a hair-braiding bar, explorable installations and video booths that created confidence-building moments. Even brands with small budgets delivered big ROI, including Visit Savannah, whose pop-up in New York City broke Gansevoort Plaza’s record for most foot traffic in a single day.
Some of the world’s biggest brands, including Anheuser-Busch, LinkedIn, McDonald’s, Xbox and Hilton, are among the honorees. But it was Reddit and agency partner Giant Spoon that snagged the top trophy—the Grand Ex award—for “Find Your People,” a b-to-b-to-c program that transformed the brand’s digital product into a living, breathing representation of its community-driven platform.
As the industry prepares for what is slated to be a jam-packed second half of the year, we invite you to use the following 102 case studies to get fired up for the months ahead, and finish like you always do—strong.
Congratulations to all of the 2023 Ex Awards honorees.
CHECK OUT THE WINNING CAMPAIGNS
This story appeared in the Summer 2023 issue
