Clio Sports, the competition honoring creative excellence in sports marketing and advertising on a global scale, has unveiled winners of the coveted Grand, Gold, Silver and Bronze Clio Sports Awards for 2020.
VaynerMedia’s work for Budweiser was the year’s big winner, with a total of three Grand Clio Sports trophies. The agency’s “The Future Official Sponsor” campaign, which aimed to shrink the pay gap between women’s and men’s sports by way of increasing sponsorships for women’s soccer, earned top honors in Integrated Campaign, Partnerships, Social Media and Sponsorships & Collaborations.
“Budweiser’s Future Official campaign is important on so many levels,” said Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia. “It is an incredibly powerful business-to-business campaign that used consumers to drive it and, most importantly, it helped close the National Women’s Soccer League’s sponsorship gap. We’re thrilled to have helped our partners at Budweiser drive real change with this culture-shifting work, and grateful to Clio Sports for recognizing the importance of this campaign.”
Brazil’s Africa was also a big Clio Sports winner this year, securing Gold for Go Equal movement’s “#GOequal” campaign in Branded Entertainment & Content; SporTV’s “Let Her Run” in Film and Direct; and AB Inbev/ Brahma beer’s “Pay Per Beer” in Digital/Mobile and Innovation. Notably, the Philadelphia 76ers were the team to beat, scoring in-house honors in Design, Experiential/Events and Social Media.
“We got a lot of interesting entries that pushed creative boundaries in different ways this year,” said Nicole Purcell, president, Clio Awards. “But I think the most important trend I’ve noticed is that the juries rewarded work that moved the needle in tangible ways. There is an appetite to celebrate creative executions that make a measurable impact on important issues like gender equality and social justice and that give athletes a platform to share their passions and personalities. I’m excited to see our trophies going to projects that connected with audiences on a deeper level than what we’ve seen in the past.”
The 2020 Grand Clio Sports Award winners are:
- Design: Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai for Nike with “BEIJING 99”
- Direct: AKQA for Google with “Google Offside Museum”
- Integrated Campaign: VaynerMedia for Budweiser with “The Future Official Sponsor”
- Partnerships, Sponsorships & Collaborations: VaynerMedia for Budweiser with “The Future Official Sponsor”
- Public Relations: Fingerpaint Marketing for Concussion Legacy Foundation with “Tackle Can Wait”
- Social Media: VaynerMedia for Budweiser with “The Future Official Sponsor”
All of this year’s Clio Sports Gold, Silver, Bronze and Shortlist recipients as well as the Agency, Brand and Team Of the Year Finalists are available here.
