2022 Pressie Awards winners announced

The PR, Experiential and Social industry of Aotearoa gathered last night at the 2022 Pressie Awards to celebrate the best campaigns from the last 12 months.

After a two-month entry period followed by two rounds of judging by 40 of the countries best PR, Events, and Social experts the Commercial Communications Council were able to hand out 29 Silver Pressie’s, nine Gold Awards, and the all-important Grand Prix.

The awards were held at the new generator space in Wynyard quarter, The Annex, and hosted by NZME’s very own Kerre Woodham, accompanied by the musical stylings of DJ Phoebe Falconer.

The night began with the Media Relations category sponsored by Telum Media. This category saw two silvers awarded, one to PR Partners and Dementia Auckland, and one to Special PR and Jaguar Land Rover. This category also saw the first gold of the evening awarded to Special PR for their work with Tourism Fiji, “A ‘Booster of Happiness’ for Dr Bloomfield”. 

The next category for the evening was Best Media Partnership sponsored by NZME and saw another three silvers handed out to The Monkeys, Crave Global, and Fuse with Eleven PR and Sony PlayStation taking of the gold for “The GT7 Celebrity Race Off”. This was followed by Best Use of Social Media where another five silvers were awarded, one for Acumen, two for Special PR, and two for Fuse who also took home a Gold in social media for their work with McDonalds called “Can I gave a job with that?”.

Best Influencer Marketing Campaign was a highly contested category this year and saw silvers for Socialites, Fuse, and Special PR – with Special PR taking out the Gold for their work with NZ AIDS Foundation “How an influencer from the past reconnected New Zealand Aids Foundation to its future”. The Experiential/Event Campaign category sponsored by RadLab this year saw yet another three silvers awarded, one each for HeyYou, Special PR, and Eleven PR, with a Gold going to Spark NZ for “ALL IN: Spark’s Digital Equity Mission”.

There was no gold this year in the Best Community Management Impact, but MBM and Tip Top picked up a silver for “Sprouting positivity with Tip Top”. There was also no golds in the Most Innovative category sponsored by Meta but there were three silvers, one each for Special PR, Chemistry, and Mango Communications. 

The biggest category for the evening was Best Integrated Campaign with three silvers and three golds. The three silvers went to FUSE, Acumen, and DRUM, and the three golds to Mango and Samsung for “Bespoke campaign for a bespoke fridge”, TBWA\Eleven NZ and Southern Cross Pet Insurance with “VIS – The Road Safety Collection”, and Special PR and NZ AIDS Foundation with “Have you heard what Bruce did?”. 

Best Strategic thinking saw a silver for Special PR and a gold for Acumen and Stake for their campaign “How Stake took RKLB to the moon!”. Non-profit also had one silver, one gold, the silver went to TBWA\Eleven NZ, and the gold to Special PR and NZ AIDS Foundation with “Have you heard what Bruce did?”. 

The last category for the evening was a new one for 2022, Diversity Equity & Inclusion sponsored by Stuff. This category saw three silver Pressies awarded to Special PR and Education New Zealand, Māia and Ngāti Kuri, and Socialites and The Health Promotion Agency. 

The Bravest Client for 2022 went to Lion for their campaign with Crave Global called “Keep Changing”. The final award for the evening, the coveted Grand Prix, is given to the campaign that achieved the best results and is the best example of an exceptional PR, experiential, and social campaign from the past year – which the judges unanimously agreed should go to Special PR and NZ AIDS Foundation for ‘Have you heard what Bruce did?”.

Pressie Awards Convener, Katharine Broughton, congratulates all the finalists and winners on behalf of the Communications Council.

“It’s exciting to be in our 5th year of The Pressies. The judges were impressed by the calibre of entries and body of work that is a powerful reflection of what our industry produces and delivers. The winners celebrate and showcase work that is driven by clever insights, strong creative and smart execution. Congratulations to all the winners!”

For a full list of winners and finalists please head to the Comms Council website or click here to download it.

The 2022 PREScom Awards were proudly presented by the Commercial Communications Council along with generous sponsors Meta, NZME, RadLab, Stuff, and Telum Media. A huge thank you also goes to beverage partners Bombay Sapphire and Asahi Beverages.