Congratulations to MikeWorldWide’s 2024 Year-End Award Winners!

One of my favorite year-end traditions at MikeWorldWide before our staff takes a well-deserved holiday break between Christmas and the New Year is our annual all-agency awards ceremony. We give awards to individuals at all levels—for outstanding employees who best represent MikeWorldWide’s core values of Empathy, Passion, Inclusion, Initiative, and Curiosity—as well as Campaign Awards—recognizing the teams behind the best of the best client campaigns from the year, for their flawless execution in areas such as digital, paid and search, creativity, innovation, use of insights, and integration.

Each award – all nominated by their colleagues – represent the best our agency has to offer. Both our clients and our agency as a whole benefit from the energy and qualities they bring to work every day.

?Without further ado – MWW’s 2024 Individual Award Winners!

Our Empathy category recognizes those who support others before themselves, making everyone around them feel truly heard and appreciated: Izzy Brantingham and Claire Sandstrom .

Our Passion award recognizes people who consistently shoot for the stars and deliver amazing, high-quality work, inspiring their team and peers to always put their best foot forward: Lena Spicer , Rachel Darata , Victoria Jackson , and Bryant Madden .

?Our Inclusion category celebrates people who champion a diversity of thinking and appreciate all the perspectives that make?every team, brainstorm, and meeting stronger and smarter: Cerys Mason and Colleen Bonanni .

Our Initiative award celebrates colleagues who jump in and lead, rallying everyone around them with an energy that super-charges the work: Jasmine Browne , Madeleine Bendalin , Stephanie Mendoza , Matt Saler , Greta Diers and Fallon C. .

Our Curiosity award recognizes those with a never-ending inquisitiveness, who inspires new ideas, collaboration and growth that strengthens the team and agency: Savanah Cruz and Jackson Hayum .

Also deserving recognition are our Rookies of the Year, who hit the ground running and made themselves invaluable to clients and teams in year one on Team MWW: Julianne Fagan , Rania Perales , Austin Blankenau , Suleika Mohamoud , Nicole Emanuel , Samantha Galfus , and Anna Sekel .

And, finally, I want to celebrate the winner of our second annual Lori Robinson Award. This recognition has historically been our MVP award, renamed in 2023 for our late colleague Lori. It goes every year to the most valuable player at MWW, who exhibits all the behaviors of our core values. She’s a person people look up to and aspire to emulate. I’m pleased that Megan Hueter is the recipient of this year’s Lori Robinson Award.?

Campaign Awards

For Most Creative Idea, shoutout to the Dairy Queen Throwback team that worked on the Summer Blizzard Menu/Freezer Activation with Ashlee Simpson. Our creative team wrote, produced, and executed social-first content and secured media interviews for Ashlee to talk about the collaboration. The social content received positive comments from icons from the 2000’s including Lance Bass from NYSNC, Snooki from Jersey Shore, and JoJo.

Our Best Use of Digital, Paid & Search award went to our Nikon team, who assembled 15 talented, diverse, and influential creators to test out the new Nikon Z6III camera in an immersive experience where they could get to know the brand. The event – Nikon Creators Camp in Park City, Utah – was a resounding success, far exceeding our social media reach goals and transforming brand perception. It resulted in 330+ posts; 100 Instagram Stories and 10 Instagram Posts; 968,270 impressions; and 10 new partner relationships. Most importantly, during the four-week period surrounding the launch, Nikon's newest model outperformed its rivals on all major platforms

Our Best Use of Insights & Strategy award went to our Veolia team which led a successful ballot referendum on the sale of municipal water infrastructure in Manalapan, NJ. Veolia won through a competitive bidding process and was named the most qualified respondent to purchase the system and make needed improvements to the town’s water supply.

Our award for Best Integrated Campaign went to our Lineage IPO team, who drove strategic comms for the largest IPO of 2024, promoted the Lineage Foundation’s $8.8M food donation pledge and $100M workforce investment, and generated extensive media coverage in top-tier and regional outlets for this milestone moment.

And finally (drumroll please), like any good awards program, we give a Best In Show award, which this year goes to our Red Lobster team, for stepping up during a difficult time to help a long-standing MWW client. With Red Lobster’s leadership focused solely on steering the company out of bankruptcy, they were reluctant to engage the media in any capacity. But without proactive communications, the brand risked letting the media speculate about what went wrong and what the future held for Red Lobster. The MWW team decided to craft a letter to keep Red Lobster fans in-the-know of the company’s progress, helping the brand control its own narrative, and simultaneously remind consumers of the love they have for the brand, which shone through in earned media coverage and social engagement. The campaign is also a finalist on the PRWeek Awards shortlist for its Best in Crisis campaign, a difficult but well-deserved list to make.

Congratulations to all our 2024 Award winners. I can’t wait to see what we all do together next year.