Ad Age Agency A-List & Creativity Awards—behind the new categories

In all, four categories have been added to the A-List Awards: Business Transformation Agency of the Year, Experiential Agency of the Year, Healthcare Agency of the Year and Best Agency Culture. The Creativity Awards have added five new categories—Film/TV/Video of the Year; Print/Design/Out-Of-Home Work of the Year; Social Campaign of the Year; Best Brand Social Media Presence of the Year and Creative Technologist of the Year. 

Also new for 2023: The Best Use of TikTok, a category that will be free to enter.

The new options offer a broader selection of categories to enter. "Given today's increasingly specialized agency world, we are expanding our awards with categories that reflect some emerging and growing disciplines," said Judann Pollack, Ad Age executive editor. "This also offers shops a greater chance to come away with an award, since they are eligible to enter in multiple categories."

New A-List categories

Business Transformation Agency of the Year (formerly Customer Experience Agency of the Year): This award honors shops that have created new strategies and smart new ideas for clients that have enabled them to connect closer with their consumers. Winners will have used means including rethinking product offerings using data or insights, reconfiguring how clients reach customers with new delivery methods or apps, recasting a company’s brand mission, or in general finding new ways for clients to make their consumers’ experience more seamless, create new connections to incite loyalty, or increase and build their customer base.

Healthcare Agency of the Year: This category is open to agencies with specific practices in the healthcare space. They can be a single independent or a holding company-owned network of healthcare agencies. Judges will look at the financial health of the agency, its new business track record and growth prospects as well as the quality of the work, which will be evaluated on its efficacy and creativity. Do not enter if you are a general market agency with a few healthcare clients—this category is open only to shops with a discrete healthcare business.

Experiential Agency of the Year: Entrants for this category will specialize in giving consumers a “hands-on” experience with a brand, whether it be through in-person or virtual events or installations, pop-up stores or innovative partnerships and sponsorships. Winners in this category will be successful in bringing a brand to life for consumers or customers, whether through interaction or innovation to make the brand more accessible, identifiable or stand out among competitors.

Best Agency Culture: This category will honor the shop that makes employees proud to show up at work each day, confident in the company’s identity and purpose. Culture, for the context of these awards, does not mean ping-pong tables or happy hours. Judges will look for excellent employee benefits, strong and effective DE&I initiatives, and programs that generally enable employees to learn, flourish and broaden their horizons through incentives, sabbaticals, remote work and more. Also playing into culture: an agency’s purpose-based initiatives such as B Corp status, sustainability programs and the like which make the agency a good citizen.

New Creativity Awards categories

Film/TV/Video of the Year: “Traditional” commercials and spots endure as a powerful marketing tool. Contenders in this category will be broadcast or digital TV/video ads or campaigns that communicate a brand’s message with a fresh point of view, sharp strategy, impact and impeccable craft. Films longer than 60 seconds can be entered, but entrants should use their discretion as to whether the work better fits into the branded entertainment/content campaign category.

Print/Design/Out-of-Home Work of the Year: This category celebrates the freshest and most impactful ideas in print, design and out-of-home advertising. The combination of idea and craft is crucial, as is how the ad/campaign uses media buy/placement to create the most impact.

Social Campaign of the Year: This category celebrates brands’ innovative use of social media platforms. Winning campaigns will demonstrate innovative strategic thinking, strong brand voice, and thoughtful attention to and engagement with consumers on their respective platforms.

Creative Technologist of the Year: Creative Technologist of the Year will honor creatives whose prowess in digital tools and technologies have amplified or led to breakthrough work and ideas for an agency’s clients. Candidates will be evaluated through their work/accomplishments and testimonials.

Best Brand Social Media Presence: The world of social media can be a finicky place, and only a few brands know how to tread this space with authenticity and flair. This category honors the brands that do social best. The winning entries will highlight work illustrating the entrant’s fluency and skill in social media, as well as the business results to back it up.

Best Use of TikTok

Presented by Ad Age and TikTok, the Best Use of TikTok will seek to honor an agency or brand that understands TikTok's core DNA—showing the power of creativity is on the platform—and created work made for TikTok that drove cultural and/or commercial impact. There is no cost to enter and entry is open to campaigns, videos or actions that debuted and ran on TikTok between Jan. 1, 2022 and Dec. 31, 2022. All work entered must have been intentionally made for TikTok and/or a major component was inspired by TikTok and lived on and off platform.

Don't forget: the first deadline is Nov. 2; the final deadline for all entries is Dec. 6 at 5 p.m. ET.