After four years of brilliant campaigns, tight votes and well-deserved winners, Newsworks is making each poll count more than ever in 2026 — say hello to the all-new ‘ad of the season’
Our monthly votes have seen plenty of fierce competition and eleventh-hour winners since the very first poll in January 2022. However, as the long-standing feature enters its fifth anniversary, it only seemed natural to raise the stakes even more.
Instead of nine monthly polls, we’ll be conducting just one poll per season in 2026. We’ll kick off our search for ‘ad of the winter’ in March, pitting 12 ads from across news brands’ wide commercial portfolios against each other to see which one takes top spot. We’ll follow this with spring’s vote in June, summer’s in September and autumn’s in November.
That’s not the only twist up our sleeves. In partnership with RAM UK’s 150-strong nationally representative panel, we’re giving readers the power to participate for the very first time. With both polls getting equal consideration, we’ll fuse the industry votes with those from RAM’s readers’ panel to reveal our ultimate winner.
Of course, bigger votes mean bigger prizes; we’ll automatically enter each vote cast in our industry poll into our revamped seasonal prize draw. No £50 Amazon vouchers here — keep your eyes peeled for what’s up for grabs in March.
Last but certainly not least, there’s the small matter of ‘ad of the year’. This also gets a glow up: it won’t just be the winner of each poll going through to the final shortlist but also the two highest-placed runners up. That means 12 finalists will vie to get their hands on a coveted Newsworks Awards trophy in December.
Look out for winter’s shortlist coming soon. In the meantime, we’re scouring national news brands for ads that master multiplatform formats, nail contextual and tactical placements and show creative genius. If you reckon one or more of those apply to your campaign, send it in for our consideration here.
