Rachel Aldighieri, MD at the DMA, discusses the 2020 DMA Awards’ shortlist and what the judges are looking for from a ‘winning’ submission.

The DMA Awards 2020 shortlist is now confirmed, with dozens of agencies and brands in contention for Gold. So it is the perfect time to highlight who stood out, from the hundreds of entries received, and what the judges are looking for from a winning submission. Despite economic uncertainty, the data and marketing industry continues to deliver fantastic and engaging work.

Awards’ shortlist showcases the very best talent

It has never been so important for our industry to stand out and highlight the amazing work that we produce, as a leader in the global data-driven creative industries.

Despite the immense challenges of Brexit and the coronavirus over the past year, it has been really encouraging to see that our industry has persevered and delivered some remarkable campaigns to support businesses large and small across the UK.

Because although many things have changed this year, the purpose of Awards winners has not.

They are the ‘shop window’ of our industry, acting both as a beacon to attract talent and as trusted intelligent marketing resources. DMA Award-winning work inspires established leaders and supports the next generation of creative and marketing stars as they emerge into our industry and set new standards.

The DMAs are designed to recognise work that has intelligent marketing at its heart – work that fuses creativity and strategic thinking while delivering fantastic results. Winning a DMA Award means that you’ve truly made a difference.

To help our Awards team discover this exemplary work, amongst hundreds of entries, the DMA partner with leading professionals across the industry to utilise their expertise, judgement and experience.

The DMA partners with Creative Equals, Culture Heroes and Outvertising to ensure we have a diverse and inclusive panel of judges. We want the people judging the work to be both experts in their field and truly representative of the customer – something that’s front and central to the DMA ethos.

Over 300 senior marketers from agencies, brands and specialists helped to judge this year’s Awards over the ten days of judging that went into creating the shortlist.

It is crucial that submissions tell ‘your’ story and speak to the judges about the journey that the team embarked on – why the campaign was needed, what the goals were, how they were achieved, and what it delivered for the customer/client.

The overwhelming feedback from our judges has been that this year’s entries have shown superb strength in creative and strategic thinking, while delivering campaigns that have produced discernible value.

Based on the shortlist, we can be sure that this year’s Awards will be the most fiercely contested yet.

MRM London leads shortlist nominations

This year’s shortlist includes entries from 59 different agencies across the 35 categories, with 159 entries still vying for silverware, not to mention a chance at the prestigious Grand Prix award.

Leading the way this year is MRM London with 15 shortlisted entries across numerous categories. The full top 10 agencies on the shortlist for the DMA Awards 2020 include:

The top 5 most shortlisted brands at this years’ Awards include:


The full shortlist can be found on the DMA website

The category winners of the DMA Awards 2020, supported by headline sponsors Datarama, Royal Mail MarketReach and Validity, will be announced via The Winners’ Series, three virtual events taking place during late November and early December.

(Winning case studies will be uploaded to WARC after the Grand Prix reveal in January 2021.)