29 Nov 2023 | Ella Sagar

Newsworks Awards 2023: Bicycle London wins Chair’s Award for Sarson’s campaign

Bicycle London being presented with the Chair's Award at Newsworks Awards 2023. L-R: Ross Sergeant, global head of media at Allwyn, Hannah Saunders, MX director at Bicycle London, Henry Daglish CEO and co-founder of Bicycle London and Jo Allan Newsworks CEO.

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Bicycle London took home the coveted Chair’s Award at last night’s Newsworks Awards for its stand out Sarson’s cover wrap rallying readers to help save the great British chip shop.

Meanwhile, Lidl took home advertiser of the year for their “consistent dedication to producing innovative and effective news brand campaigns” via its agency OMD UK.

Both best content partnership and most effective campaign went to EssenceMediacom and The Pharm for their work on Boots’ nationwide health check campaign.

Ross Sergeant, Allwyn’s global head of media and chair of judges, commented: “It’s been fantastic to chair such a competitive Newsworks Awards this year. The standard of entries has been outstanding and all our winners should be immensely proud.

“Bicycle London and Sarson’s fight to save our chip shops particularly stood out to me for cleverly using the news brand format to its fullest. The result was a brilliantly impactful campaign, which amplified an issue close to readers’ hearts — a worthy winner of the Chair’s Award.”

Spark Foundry also secured two awards for two separate campaigns with Asda. Its clever “Romaine calm” creative won best tactical ad, while best display was won by its 2022 Christmas campaign featuring Will Farrell’s Buddy the Elf.

Zenith UK took home best social impact campaign for its International Women’s Day work with Scottish Widows highlighting the pension gender pay gap. Publicis Media and Aviva were honoured in the best contextual campaign category for clever placement around news brand puzzles sections.

Elsewhere, 2023’s rising star of the year award was won by Wavemaker content director Molly Exley-Kidd for her outstanding achievements so far in promoting ambitious, effective news brand advertising within her agency.

How the best advertisers embrace newsbrands

Speaking on judging day, Lauren Raymond, UM managing partner, strategy & audiences, said: “It’s been really inspiring, a fantastic day and an amazing celebration of news media.

“It’s been a good refresher for lots of us to see all the ways you can use newsbrands and how the best advertisers are really embracing that platform.”

Newsworks CEO Jo Allan commented: “We’ve seen outstanding examples of effective and collaborative multiplatform campaigns this year, demonstrating the power of newsbrands in all their forms: from impactful print and digital display to brand partnerships and ever-evolving video and podcast formats.

“Congratulations to all those whose work was recognised this year.”

The full list of winners and highly commended campaigns are collected below. Case studies for each can be found here.

2023 winners

Best display campaign

Winner: Asda, ‘Have your Elf a Merry Christmas’, Spark Foundry

Highly commended: GambleAware, Let’s Open Up About Gambling, OmniGOV @ MG OMD

Best content partnership

Winner: Boots, Project You, Health Check Campaign, EssenceMediacom & The Pharm

Highly commended: Halifax, Who knew banks could do ‘community’?, Zenith UK

Best tactical ad

Winner: Asda, Tactical Ads, Spark Foundry

Highly commended: Burger King, (Burger) King’s Coronation, iProspect

Best contextual campaign

Winner: Aviva, Using innovative contexts to bring to life ‘solving financial puzzles’, Publicis Media

Highly commended: Sanofi – Buscopan, Taking a high fashion approach to irritable bowel syndrome, Hearts & Science

Most effective campaign

Winner: Boots, Project You, Health Check Campaign, EssenceMediacom & The Pharm

Highly commended: Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), The DEC Turkey/Syria Earthquake Appeal: the power of news media in an emergency, JAA Media