With OMD UK winning the inaugural ‘ad of the year’ title at this year’s Newsworks Awards after a two-week industry poll, we take a look at what readers thought of some of 2024’s top news brand ad campaigns
Every month in 2024, we shortlisted eight brilliant multiplatform news brand ads and asked the industry to vote for its favourite. However, alongside our industry poll, we also carried out surveys of 150 nationally representative people with RAM UK to discover what readers thought.
We asked them not only about their favourite ad of each month but also which ads had the best design, originality and messaging.
Hitting a huge 40% in July, the most popular ad from this year’s readers surveys was… KitKat! Booked and planned by Group M’s specialist OPENMIND agency for Nestle, the ad highlighted the vital role of cocoa farmers and the importance of ensuring they are fairly paid. When split for gender, KitKat’s ad came out on top among male readers, with 54% of men between 35–54 choosing the campaign as their favourite.
Meanwhile, KitKat and the British Heart Foundation’s brand partnership with News UK came out joint top among female readers in July and April respectively. The latter, which was booked and planned by PHD and spotlighted how researchers and donators were contributing to the fight against heart disease, was particularly popular among women aged over 55 — 57% chose this ad as their favourite among April’s shortlist.
Elsewhere, one ad particularly smashed it when it came to messaging. Planned by Spark Foundry, Nytol’s cover-wrap brand partnership with the London Standard captured readers’ attentions with a specially commissioned news brand-style cartoon of a sleepy Big Ben that introduced helpful tips around surviving the changing clocks..
Readers in October’s poll thought Nytol’s ad was the cleverest, the best designed and the most original, calling it as ‘funny’, ‘interesting’ and ‘clever’ when asked to describe the campaign in one word. Its originality was particularly noticeable about young people, with almost eight in 10 18–34s saying the campaign was original in our survey.
See all our shortlisted ‘ad of the month’ campaigns in 2024 here.
