Adidas, EE, Monzo, ServiceNow, Specsavers and Warburtons have been shortlisted for Marketing Week’s Brand of the Year, in partnership with Tracksuit.
These six brands were chosen from a long list put together by the Marketing Week editorial team, which was then ranked by the Marketing Week Awards jury of more than 40 senior marketing leaders.
Brands were rated based on business performance, brand strategy excellence, innovation and use of the 4Ps over the past 12 to 18 months.
The winner will be chosen based on a combination of a public vote, the scores of our judges and consultation with brand strategy experts.
The winning brand will be revealed at an awards ceremony at The Londoner in Central London on 23 October.
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Adidas
Adidas has come a long way since the decision to axe its Yeezy tie-up alongside high levels of discounting had the German sportswear giant bracing for a “bumpy” 2023.
The intervening two years in turnaround mode have seen Adidas renew its investment in marketing to drive “brand heat”. Reporting its first quarter results in April, Adidas pledged to invest in “impactful” marketing, upping spend by 14% to €746m (£634m) in the three months to 31 March.
The sportswear label has put money behind key creative, such as multi-year brand platform ‘You Got This’ and ‘The Original’, a campaign aimed at younger audiences. Investments in major sporting events such as the Super Bowl, as well as across the NBA and football, contributed to the uptick in spend.
Adidas’s renewed faith in marketing is paying off. First quarter revenue grew 13% year-on-year to €6.2bn (£5.3bn), with operating profit up 82% to €610m (£518m).
The firm re-entered Kantar’s 2025 BrandZ ranking at 98, after a focus on long-term brand building and renewed retail partnerships grew brand value from $16.1bn (£12.2bn) to $21.1bn (£16bn) in the last year.
Crucially, Adidas is maintaining leadership across all metrics tracked by data firm Tracksuit, which describes stability at these levels as a notable achievement in a mature category.
The business enjoys “extremely high” awareness of 93%, with no significant change in competitor average. According to Tracksuit, this level of sustained recognition is a “big win in a cluttered market”.
Adidas’s consideration stands at 72%, indicating the brand’s relevance in purchase decisions, with category penetration sitting at 71%. Preference stands at 26%, which Tracksuit describes as “significantly higher than average” and indicative of strong brand loyalty.
EE
EE has made a huge investment in its brand and proposition over the past two years, strengthening its already stellar position within a highly competitive market.
EE became BT Group’s flagship consumer brand in 2022, with the business transitioning from its mobile roots into a broader subscription-based model encompassing broadband, TV, gaming and security, all connected under the EE masterbrand.
The relaunch involved rethinking everything from EE’s position and purpose to refreshing its brand identity and overhauling its creative platform.
To communicate this transformation, EE launched its biggest marketing campaign in more than a decade to introduce the ‘New EE’. The brand says the ad campaign reached 23 million people and 7 million on social in its launch weekend.
BT had dominated group broadband sales at 95%, while EE only captured 5%. Post-rebrand this shifted to 70% for EE and 30% for BT. Consideration for the masterbrand also jumped by 6%, with EE and BT’s group brand and consumer marketing director, Pete Jeavons, saying the business saw an “almost instantaneous light up” across all its metrics.
But it wasn’t just an initial spike. In a low engagement category like utilities, continued top-of-mind status is essential, and all this has only propelled the brand further, meaning it has slightly above average awareness of 84%, according to data from Tracksuit.
At 40%, its conversion rate is well above the competitor average of 30%, suggesting EE is successfully converting that awareness into purchase potential.
Monzo
Monzo has been on a roll, turning a profit for the first time last year and hitting £1bn in revenue for the first time in 2025, with marketing playing a key role in its success.
The bank launched its first brand campaign – ‘Money Never Felt Like Monzo’ – in five years last year, as part of a 77% rise in marketing spend. The investment is paying off, with brand awareness at an all-time high and the drive leading to a 21% increase in brand value compared to the year prior.
Earlier this year, Monzo’s vice-president of marketing AJ Coyne told Marketing Week the brand was switching to a “pulsing strategy” in the second wave of its brand campaign, while the online bank was also making waves on social media through its gamification of finance, embodied through the 1p challenge and its ‘Year in Monzo’ wrap-up. Partnerships with Channel 4 and creator content have also driven its reach, with influencer content for its wrap-up in particular being seen by almost 20 million people.
Indeed, 67% of new customers joined thanks to word-of-mouth recommendations, according to its latest annual report. Meanwhile, data from Tracksuit shows its growth has stabilised, but metrics remain “solid”, with awareness at 70%, above the competitor average of 50%.
In a crowded financial services market, it seems the brand has cracked the code on how to stand out, with its category penetration at 96%, according to Tracksuit.
ServiceNow
Every brand is looking to stand out with its generative AI products. Few will have been as successful in showcasing the value of them as ServiceNow.
The software business launched its brand platform ‘Put AI To Work’ in 2024 – before many businesses had even figured out an AI strategy – and since then the business has seen tremendous growth in its customer base and authority on the subject matter.
Led by its CMO Colin Fleming – poached from Salesforce where he built the brand to be a B2B powerhouse – ServiceNow is an exemplar in what makes a modern B2B brand. It is creative. It is colourful. And it puts authentic, human connection at the heart of its marketing efforts.
Just look at its campaign with British actor Idris Elba, which adds a welcome dollop of personality and humour to a category that is often accused of being boring. The brand has also revamped its visual identity to freshen up how it approaches the marketplace and bring it in line with a modern B2B business.
The impact has been clear on its financial results with ServiceNow posting total revenue of $10.27bn (£7.50bn) for 2024, representing 19% year over year growth, and the company now has over 2,000 customers with more than $1m in annual contract value, representing 12% year over year growth in customers, and nearly 500 customers with more than $5m in ACV, representing 21% year over year growth.
It has won Effie Awards for two consecutive years – the most recent being a Bronze prize in the B2B category for its Put AI To Work campaign. And, if that wasn’t enough, it has also jumped from 53 to 41 on the Kantar BrandZ Most Valuable Global Brands list.
The business has now firmly set its sights on Salesforce in the tough-to-crack CRM category – but few would argue against it offering a firm challenge off the back of an impressive couple of years.
Specsavers
Specsavers is a strong example of a brand that has reaped the rewards of consistency.
Celebrating its 40th anniversary last year, the business hasn’t rested on its laurels, with awareness at a high of 91%, according to data from Tracksuit, far ahead of the category’s average of 38%. The brand’s consideration is also high at 72%, experiencing a 5% uplift in the last year.
It’s a brand with strong marketing fundamentals, in part thanks to the Specsavers Academy of Marketing, a skills and knowledge initiative to support its marketers worldwide.
Specsavers’ CMO Peter Wright is a believer in fostering an environment of psychological safety and encouraging his marketers to try new things. “If we’re not trying new things out, we’re not going to work out what does work and what doesn’t,” he told Marketing Week last year.
In October 2024, the brand won gold at the IPA Effectiveness Awards for its ‘I don’t go’ campaign, which subverted its longstanding ‘Should’ve gone’ tagline to highlight its home visits proposition – and delivered an estimated £19.8m in incremental profit.
Group revenue grew by 7.5% in the 2023/24 financial year to £4.18bn, and while the business noted a drop in profits, it said this was in part due to swallowing inflationary costs and not passing them on to customers.
Warburtons
Warburtons has continued to rise where many of its competitors have fallen flat in recent years, driving growth in a tough category through investment in innovation, product quality and advertising.
Bread is a category that almost all households purchase, with 98% penetration according to brand tracking platform, Tracksuit. Yet, traditional sliced and packaged bread is falling out of favour among some consumers, with volumes having fallen 15% in the last five years, according to Kantar data.
The category is also a busy one, with plenty of big brands competing for the largest slice of the sector. While probably best associated with the traditional white sliced loaf, Warburtons has successfully expanded its range through new product development to grow its market.
In its annual report for the year ended September 2024, Warburtons reported a market trend of a decline in wrapped loaves, offset by growth in other bakery products. From bagels to pittas, innovation outside of bread helped Warburtons to grow its volumes 2.9% in the year ended September 2024. This year, it has also expanded its gluten-free offering to continue broadening its appeal.
In addition to investment in product, the brand has also been investing in brand-building through advertising. ‘The Inspection’, featuring Olivia Colman, went live earlier this year, aiming to cement the “national treasure” status of one of Warburtons’ core products, the crumpet. The ad follows previous work with Samuel L Jackson and England footballer Mary Earps.
Given this sustained investment in brand-building, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Tracksuit’s data shows Warburtons has strong awareness at 89%, which has held steady even in a saturated category. It also sees strong levels of preference, at 33%.
