VaynerMedia, AKQA, Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai and Fingerpaint Marketing Score Grand Clio Sports Awards
Sheena Bermingham
VaynerMedia, AKQA, Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai and Fingerpaint Marketing Score Grand Clio Sports Awards
Executions for Budweiser, Google, Nike and Concussion Legacy Foundation Earn Top Honors in 2020
New York, NY—October 28, 2020—Clio Sports, the competition honoring creative excellence in sports marketing and advertising on a global scale, today announced the exceptional entries that earned the coveted Grand, Gold, Silver and Bronze Clio Sports Awards for 2020.
VaynerMedia’s work for Budweiser was the year’s big winner, with a total of three Grand Clio Sports trophies. The agency’s “The Future Official Sponsor” campaign, which aimed to shrink the pay gap between women’s and men’s sports by way of increasing sponsorships for women’s soccer, earned top honors in Integrated Campaign, Partnerships, Social Media and Sponsorships & Collaborations.
“Budweiser’s Future Official campaign is important on so many levels,” said Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia. “It is an incredibly powerful business-to-business campaign that used consumers to drive it and, most importantly, it helped close the National Women’s Soccer League’s sponsorship gap. We’re thrilled to have helped our partners at Budweiser drive real change with this culture-shifting work, and grateful to Clio Sports for recognizing the importance of this campaign.”
Vaynerchuk will speak about this work and much more on a panel about the future of storytelling in sports as part of the Clio Sports and Bleacher Report “The New Sports Marketing Playbook” event today at 2:15pm ET. Click here to RSVP.
Brazil’s Africa was also a big Clio Sports winner this year, securing Gold for Go Equal movement’s “#GOequal” campaign in Branded Entertainment & Content; SporTV’s “Let Her Run” in Film and Direct; and AB Inbev/ Brahma beer’s “Pay Per Beer” in Digital/Mobile and Innovation. Notably, the Philadelphia 76ers were the team to beat, scoring in-house honors in Design, Experiential/Events and Social Media.
“We got a lot of interesting entries that pushed creative boundaries in different ways this year,” said Nicole Purcell, President, Clio Awards. “But I think the most important trend I’ve noticed is that the juries rewarded work that moved the needle in tangible ways. There is an appetite to celebrate creative executions that make a measurable impact on important issues like gender equality and social justice and that give athletes a platform to share their passions and personalities. I’m excited to see our trophies going to projects that connected with audiences on a deeper level than what we’ve seen in the past.”
The full list of 2020 Grand Clio Sports Award winners are:
Design: Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai for Nike with “BEIJING 99”
Direct: AKQA for Google with “Google Offside Museum”
Integrated Campaign: VaynerMedia for Budweiser with “The Future Official Sponsor”
Partnerships, Sponsorships & Collaborations: VaynerMedia for Budweiser with “The Future Official Sponsor”
Public Relations: Fingerpaint Marketing for Concussion Legacy Foundation with “Tackle Can Wait”
Social Media: VaynerMedia for Budweiser with “The Future Official Sponsor”
All of this year’s Clio Sports Gold, Silver, Bronze and Shortlist recipients as well as the Agency, Brand and Team Of the Year Finalists are available now at https://www.clios.com/sports.
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About Clio
Clio is the premier international awards competition for the creative business. Founded in 1959 to celebrate creative excellence in advertising, Clio today honors the work and talent at the forefront of the industry in a variety of specialized fields, including: sports, fashion, music, entertainment, cannabis and health. As a leading authority on the diverse and ever-changing creative landscape, Clio celebrates creativity 365-days-a-year via its global ad database Ads of The World and its content platform Muse by Clio.
About Clio Sports
Clio Sports, founded in 2014, honors the best in sports advertising and marketing around the world. Annually, the foremost sports business influencers— marketing executives, commissioners, broadcasters and athletes alike— convene to select and celebrate the breakthrough communications that propel the industry forward, inspire a competitive marketplace of ideas and foster meaningful connections within the creative community.