Carat UK has secured three shortlist nominations at the prestigious 2025 The Drum Marketing Awards EMEA, recognising the agency's innovative campaigns across content creation, partnerships, and consumer marketing.
The Drum Marketing Awards EMEA celebrate excellence in marketing throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It attracts thousands of entries from advertising agencies, in-house teams, design consultancies, digital agencies, PR companies, and integrated agencies. Being shortlisted among this broad spectrum of marketing talent represents a significant achievement for Carat UK, highlighting the agency's ability to deliver impactful, results-driven campaigns.
Carat's Award-Nominated Campaigns
Co-op Funeralcare: Celebrity Send Off
Categories: Content and Partnership or Collaboration
When tackling a subject like death, where 91% of people think about it but half never discuss it, you need something special to break through such a strong taboo. Carat teamed up with Co-op Funeralcare and Channel 4 to create "Celebrity Send Off," a fresh approach that changed how people talk about planning for the end of life.
This groundbreaking project broke new ground for Channel 4, which, for the first time, allowed its content to be shared beyond its own platforms to YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok. Co-op Funeralcare opened its doors, putting their real funeral directors on camera to guide celebrities through planning actual funerals.
The show paired well-known duos—rockers Bez and Shaun Ryder, Olympic athlete Kriss Akabusi and his daughter Shakira, and Gogglebox stars Marcus and Mica—to plan each other's funerals without knowing what the other would want. The result was both entertaining and meaningful, boosting awareness for Co-op and creating such compelling viewing that Channel 4 permanently added it to their on-demand service, All4. Most importantly, 63% of viewers said they felt more comfortable talking about their own funeral wishes afterwards, showing that the right approach can both entertain and change how people think about difficult topics.
The campaign's recognition in both Content and Partnership categories shows its all-around excellence, demonstrating how working together effectively can achieve remarkable results. Each partner brought something unique: Channel 4 provided the platform, Co-op Funeralcare shared their expertise and opened their doors, and Carat created the strategy that brought everything together. Together, they started a national conversation about a topic many people avoid while delivering great results for everyone involved.
This campaign has been collecting awards, having already won Best Media Partnership at last month's Campaign Media Awards 2025. The judges loved how it tackled a difficult subject in a way that was both authentic and engaging, making a real difference for the brand and society.
Kellanova | Cheez-It: Cheez-Hit? Cheez-It!
Category: CPG/FMCG
Bringing a beloved American snack with 100 years of history to a new market was a big challenge, especially in the UK's competitive £ 4bn snack market. Carat's approach for Kellanova's Cheez-It was simple: make it impossible for snack lovers not to know, love, and want this unique product.
The campaign centred on the catchy "Cheez-Hit? Cheez-It!" slogan, highlighting what makes the product special: a thin, crispy baked snack made with 100% real cheese that delivers an amazing burst of cheese flavour. With new food advertising rules coming in October 2025, establishing the brand's distinctive look and sound quickly was essential.
Carat took a bold approach using a mix of high-visibility billboards, audio ads, and digital content to make sure everyone recognised Cheez-It's distinctive style. The results were impressive, reaching 8.9% of UK consumers within just 12 weeks and getting 25.8% of buyers to purchase again by year-end. This made Cheez-It the biggest new brand launch in the large-sharing snacks category in four years, setting it up for continued success.
A Network Achievement
The Drum Marketing Awards EMEA receives thousands of entries each year from across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, showcasing the region's most innovative marketing. Getting three nominations against such tough competition highlights Carat's creative excellence and strategic thinking.
Adding to the network's success, dentsu sister agencies iProspect and Merkle also received nominations in various categories, showing the network's broad expertise across all aspects of marketing.
This continued success for Carat and the broader dentsu network shows their commitment to creating work that not only delivers business results but also pushes creative boundaries and makes a meaningful impact across the EMEA region.
The winners will be announced at The Drum Awards ceremony in London next month, bringing together the region's top marketing talent to celebrate exceptional work that moves the industry forward.
The complete shortlist can be viewed here.
