Brand Of The Year 2024: The Shortlist

We are delighted to announce the shortlist for our Brand of The Year 2024

The Marketing Society Brand of the Year award, in partnership with EPAM and in association with Campaign, celebrates the brands that have innovated and adapted to the social and economic challenges in yet another challenging year.

Last year’s winner was Lucky Saint, with previous recipients of the accolade including Dove, Sainsbury’s, John Lewis, The Guardian, Cancer Research, Channel 4 and O2.

We launched the Award in 2009 and 2024's celebration will be held at our Annual Dinner on 26 November at City Central at The HAC, where our audience will have the chance to vote and crown the winner via a live vote.

The online vote is now closed and we will conclude with a live vote on the night at our Annual Dinner. 

Judging for the award considered factors including brands’ ability to adapt to changing customer needs, the creativity and originality of campaigns, commercial impact, and the brand’s wider impact on the plant.

THE SHORTLIST

Greggs

This very British brand continues to defy the high-street exodus, increasing sales while investing heavily in engagement programmes and customer loyalty initiatives. Its commitment to ensuring physical availability has led to late-night openings and store expansions, while new and extended product ranges and greater availability via digital channels have kept customers engaged. Clever innovations and collaborations, including the “Baked in gold” jewellery range, Greggs Champagne Bar in Fenwick and a sausage-roll dispenser with Monzo, alongside its work in local communities (recently opening its 1000th breakfast club), have all contributed to the brand’s rise.

Heinz

Heinz’s global brand platform ‘It Has to be Heinz’ was born from a single consumer insight; fans will go to extreme – sometimes irrational – lengths to get their hands on Heinz. It’s an insight so rich that it inspired an entire platform celebrating the all-consuming, universal love people have for the brand, from Ketchup and Beanz and everything in between. Heinz’s creative use of brand assets and clever collaborations with Absolut Vodka and Barbie have also boosted the brand. Despite the cost-of-living crisis, frequent product innovations and ongoing partnerships with restaurants, events and festivals have contributed to this brand’s phenomenal growth with Global Heinz sales +12% over five years.

Huda Beauty

This is a brand that takes a stand with a bold social presence. Claiming never to have spent money on advertising, its effective marketing strategy includes influencer and blogger collaborations, data-driven decision making and creating smart immersive, experiential campaigns. As part of its sustainability pledge, Huda Beauty reduced its product line by 50% to reduce waste and has donated money to many humanitarian causes. It also promotes diversity and inclusivity via its channel, while founder Huda Kattan is praised for listening and responding to customers and frequently speaking about her failures and mistakes. 

IKEA

IKEA has continued to stay true to its brand, understanding its audience and targeting ads accordingly. Its focus on creating clever products such as work-from-home desks, introducing furniture for rent and enabling customers to sell their unwanted furniture back to Ikea to be reused, has resonated with today’s sustainability-conscious consumer. With a clever website and app featuring a 3D-modelling system that allows customers to see products in their homes before buying, coupled with the expansion of smaller city-based stores, IKEA'S agility in adapting to changing customer needs and concerns is paramount.

Lidl

Lidl continues to attract consumers and is now the sixth-biggest supermarket in the UK by market share, closing the gap on nearest competitor Morrisons. A continuous programme of innovation has kept it relevant, including a recent groundbreaking plan to have plant-based proteins making up 25% of its total protein sales by 2030. In-store food banks, the Lidl Plus app, which offers tailored food coupons direct to customers, and its light-touch marketing campaigns have highlighted the way in which the food retailer understands and responds to swiftly changing customer needs.

Liquid Death

This canned-water start-up turned the bottled-water market on its head with a massive gothic punch. It is now one of the most successful soft-drink innovators in recent years. Products come in an “infinitely recyclable” aluminium can – a far more sustainable option than traditional plastic bottles. Its bold and brave approach to marketing, fuelling Instagram and TikTok accounts with huge followings, uses a blend of comedy and satire to create its distinct brand of entertaining content. This, alongside its pledge to donate a portion of its proceeds to non-profits helping to fight plastic pollution and bringing clean drinking water to those in need, have contributed to the brand's rapid rise.

Marks & Spencer

Independently voted as Britain's most loved brand by YouGov, M&S is undergoing a bold and ambitious transformation. It was the first retailer to launch store social media, where all its stores run their own accounts and now dominate TikTok. In Food, it has stretched its lead on quality perceptions, has the highest value perceptions in over a decade and has gone from number 4 to leading the market on brand buzz. In Clothing, new ranges and exciting collaborations are driving style perceptions. M&S was the first retailer to launch stoma knickers in the UK and led a campaign to remove tax from period products; it also raises millions of pounds for children’s mental health with Young Minds and has raised £17m for Shelter over a 20-year partnership. M&S has emerged from a challenging period to become a hero of the high street and is resonating more than ever with a younger age group while retaining the core shopper. Marks has got its spark back!

Monzo

With more than nine million customers, this year Monzo reached profitability for the first time since it was founded nine years ago. Getting the basics right from the start, it has grown rapidly through word of mouth. It recently more than doubled its marketing spend to grow brand awareness, releasing its first brand campaign in five years (only its second ever campaign). A clever partnership with Greggs, including a sausage-roll dispenser, a focus on people and the planet with a commitment to becoming net zero by 2030, as well as product diversification into loans and pensions, have smoothed the brand's move into the mainstream.

Specsavers

This long-standing trailblazer has evolved from selling affordable glasses on the high street to being a highly sophisticated optical and hearing care provider operating in stores, online, in homes, in the community and across the world. Evolving mainly from mass TV advertising, it has embraced multi-channel communications with a unique voice and creative consistency. Specsavers has elevated itself into a category of one – a company founded on the serious purpose of changing people’s lives through better sight and hearing delivered with humanity, humour, and humility.

Vinted

Another brand seeing its first year in profit in 2023, the C2C second-hand fashion marketplace has shown 61% revenue growth year on year. Using customer data and innovation to propel its success, it uses marketing to highlight its ease of use, tapping into expanding items’ life and addressing cost-of-living challenges. A focus on creative and inclusive storytelling that is never preachy, while helping to make second-hand the first choice has proved a winner with consumers. Expansion into designer and luxury fashion, but also recently electronics, while working with influencers and successful sponsorships such as Hollyoaks and Big Brother, Vinted has become a brand that has multi-generational appeal.

Join us at our Annual Dinner on 26 November to crown the winner via live vote and to celebrate the ingenuity, passion and drive of our industry.

The online vote is now closed and we will conclude with a live vote on the night at our Annual Dinner. 

How the winner is decided: the online vote will be counted and those votes will be carried forward to the night with each brand given a weighted score which will be added to the results of the live vote. 

Shortlist announced first in Campaign, with permission to share content.