Rather than media budgets size, global fame or creative boldness, it is the daily orientation towards effectiveness that drives their success..
That’s the key lesson emerging from the latest Global Best of the Best Effie Awards. The 12 winners span categories from youth culture to finance, and from public safety to snack foods. They include challenger brands like Eos (winner of the top award, the Iridium), established giants like Meta’s WhatsApp, and non-profits like Sydney Children's Hospitals Foundation. Their work looks different but the DNA is the same: effectiveness was not an afterthought - it was the starting point.
At Effie, effectiveness isn’t seen as a final graph proving success. It’s a day-to-day mindset: you start with it, live it, and breathe it. For 55 years, Effie Worldwide has been championing marketing effectiveness with this rigour across the globe, operating in more than 130 markets and counting.
The 2024 winners prove why that matters more than ever.
Connecting through culture - and making it count
Several of this year’s most effective campaigns succeeded by embedding themselves deeply into culture.
In a category long overdue for disruption, Eos and Mischief @No Fixed Address set out to revolutionise the outdated and overly polite world of women’s shaving by making Eos part of Gen Z’s open and frank conversations about body hair. By anchoring the brand in truth, they embraced a raw and refreshingly real approach, shattering old beauty norms and showing that connection through honesty (even about pubes and toe hair) can drive remarkable commercial returns. (Look out for our feature on their campaign published shortly.)
Similarly, Cheez-It’s “Aged by Audio” campaign tapped into hip-hop culture with wit and credibility, quadrupling engagement without a mass media spend. Meanwhile, Skittles reignited brand love by publicly apologising to fans for a past flavour change - a masterclass in embracing consumer passion, even when it means admitting fault.
WeCapital’s “Data Tienda” and Intuit QuickBooks’ “Think Ote” were also notably embedded into culture (see more below).
The thread running through all these cases? Culture wasn’t an afterthought; it was the canvas.
Championing representation - with impact, not tokenism
Effie’s winners also showed that connecting with under-represented audiences requires depth, not decoration.
WeCapital’s “Data Tienda” revolutionised financial access for low-income Mexican women by digitising informal credit records. Intuit QuickBooks’ “Think Ote” campaign shifted Hispanic entrepreneurs' mindsets about business size and ambition.
Both campaigns demonstrate that when brands don’t just market to communities but invest in solving real barriers, the business impact is outsized - and lasting.
Brand acts that drive good - and deliver growth
The 2024 winners also proved that brand purpose and commercial success aren’t mutually exclusive. Sydney Children's Hospitals Foundation, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, Fundación Casa Ronald McDonald Ecuador and others showed that tackling serious issues - from hospital funding to fire safety - can drive measurable outcomes if done with creativity and commitment.
It’s a reminder that marketing's true power lies not in messaging but in moving people: to donate, to act, to trust, to change.
Lessons from the Global Best of the Best
Across these outstanding campaigns, several common lessons stand out:
Start from consumer truth. Eos didn’t invent a conversation about body hair; it joined the one already happening. Data Tienda listened to the financial realities women faced before offering a solution.
Earn trust, don’t demand it. 北京赛车pk10s that became part of culture - such as those for Skittles, and WhatsApp - can build trust through humility, humour and human insight.
Make creativity serve effectiveness. Not the other way around. Every creative leap for eos, from “Vagnastics” to “Pubes for the Planet,” was anchored in a clear business goal.
Stay restless. Success wasn’t the end point for these brands. It was a platform to evolve, stretch categories and unlock new growth.
Effie: Setting the global standard for marketing effectiveness
The Effies are not just another awards programme. With three rounds of judging, cross-disciplinary panels and a relentless focus on evidence - not just storytelling - an Effie must be earned.
That’s why winners like Eos, Intuit QuickBooks and Sydney Children's Hospitals Foundation stand taller today. They didn’t just create impact once; they showed how marketing can lead, inspire and drive tangible growth.
From challenger brands to multinationals, Effie stands beside all marketers who believe that effectiveness is not a box to tick, but a way to work every day.
For Effie Global CEO Traci Alford, the Effies are, simply put: “success, quantified.”
And in an era when marketing budgets face more scrutiny than ever, that mindset - that effectiveness is a daily orientation, and not just a final outcome - might just be the biggest difference between winning and fading into irrelevance.