The Marketing Society Scotland STAR Awards are Scotland’s most prestigious marketing awards, recognising excellence, innovation and creativity across the country’s marketing community. Winning a STAR is a significant accolade, but as the awards themselves acknowledge, making the shortlist is an achievement in its own right.
This year, Carat has received eight shortlists across seven categories, and the credit belongs to our Edinburgh team, who have demonstrated the breadth and quality of work coming out of their office, spanning specialisms including AI-powered audience targeting, international tourism, energy network communications and FMCG brand relaunches. They work day-to-day on some of Scotland and the UK’s biggest and most complex brands. These nominations are a reflection of what their dedication looks like in practice.
Getting France On-board
Category: International Marketing | Client: VisitScotland
French visits to Scotland had bounced back 56% above pre-pandemic levels, but 60% of visitors were still flying in and hiring a car. VisitScotland wanted to change that. In partnership with ScotRail, we built the first dedicated Scottish rail campaign aimed at French travellers, using itinerary-led content, a branded GEO.fr podcast and low-carbon travel platform Hourrail! to make train travel feel both aspirational and practical.
The results spoke for themselves. The GEO podcast hit 20% above forecast, Hourrail! content generated 3.7 million views, and an independent effectiveness study found 89% of respondents were open to travelling around Scotland by train. French search volume for “train travel in Scotland” rose 27% year-on-year.
Scotland’s Universities Unite for Growth
Category: International Marketing | Client: Brand Scotland
Scotland’s universities are world-class, but in 2023/24 international student numbers fell by 12%. Brand Scotland’s response was to bring all 19 Scottish universities together under a single campaign voice to showcase the sector’s collective strengths to prospective students worldwide.
Targeting ambitious learners across seven high-growth markets via partnerships with three globally trusted study platforms: IDP, StudyPortals and QS. The campaign was encapsulated with the line, “Come to Study. Find Scotland.” Post-campaign research found that 46% of people who recognised the campaign visited Scotland.org/study, and 28% said they applied to study in Scotland as a direct result.
Scotland’s Best Kept Season
Category: Public Sector | Client: VisitScotland
Scotland’s tourism industry had a seasonality problem. Too much visitor spend was concentrated in the summer, leaving the shoulder seasons underserved. Our response was to make Autumn and Winter feel like the smart traveller’s choice, while also addressing ease of access by promoting direct flights into Scotland. We targeted the US, France and Germany simultaneously through Skyscanner, reaching travellers at every stage of their decision journey, through to the point of booking with live fares attached.
The campaign delivered an exceptional return on ad spend with a brand uplift study showing a 22-point increase in likelihood to book within 12 months and a 20-point uplift in openness to Autumn and Winter travel, proving that the message landed with the right consumers at the right time.
Switching Tracks with ‘AI’dara
Category: Digital First and AI, Automation & Emerging Tech | Client: VisitScotland & Avanti West Coast
Our brief was to convince Londoners who typically fly to Scotland to take the train instead, with a specific focus on midweek travel. We knew that standard audience targeting wasn’t going to cut it, so we brought in Adara (a travel-data platform pulling real-time booking signals from 270+ travel brands) to find exactly the right consumers. AI continuously optimised delivery, prioritising the highest value travellers in real time.
Full integration with Avanti’s booking engine gave us end-to-end attribution from ad to ticket purchase, something rare in domestic tourism campaigns. The overall ROI came in at 48.1, with midweek travel dominating, exactly as planned.
Chasing the Storm
Category: Media | Client: SP Energy Networks
When a storm cuts the power, 105 is the number to call, regardless of your energy supplier. Getting that message to stick had been a long game: awareness had grown from 49% to 65% over three years of campaigning. In 2025, we wanted a bigger leap.
Using a weather API to trigger dynamic Digital OOH and VOD pause ads in areas where storm warnings had been issued, we made the messaging land at the most relevant possible moments. Combined with tightly targeted paid social driving Priority Services Register sign-ups among vulnerable groups, the campaign pushed 105 awareness from 65% to 75% in a single winter. That's the biggest single-season gain on record.
It’s the Season for Jersey Royals
Category: Food | Client: Albert Bartlett
Jersey Royal potatoes had been in long-term decline, falling from 50,000 tonnes sold in the 90s vs. 20,000 tonnes by 2023. When Albert Bartlett acquired the Jersey Royal Company in 2024, they committed £3M to turn that around, briefing Carat and sister company, Dentsu Creative to relaunch the brand for the 2025 season.
We were challenged with creating a recognisable Jersey Royal “season” in shoppers’ minds, spanning a 60-second Coronation Street spot reaching four million viewers, geo-targeted OOH focused on postcodes where the product was stocked, and a London Underground escalator takeover reaching three million commuters. Despite challenging weather conditions, Jersey Royal sales grew 4.4% in value and 1.5% in volume, bucking the wider UK fresh potato market decline of 2.1%. Ad awareness more than doubled, and purchase intent grew by 10%.
Bish Bash Bentos
Category: Integrated Marketing | Client: Baxters Food Group
Fray Bentos had become more meme than meal. Culturally familiar but commercially fading, with penetration falling and younger consumers disengaged. Our solution relied on us leaning into the brand’s unapologetic Britishness, fronting the campaign with viral social media personality The Boshfather, a former boxer whose no-nonsense enthusiasm for proper food made him a natural fit.
The omnichannel campaign spanned social reels, OOH, stadium advertising, in-store POS, programmatic audio across major podcasts and a sampling van that toured football grounds nationwide. The results reversed years of decline. Volume market share hit a three-year high, outperforming the total market share by 17 percentage points.
The Marketing Society Scotland STAR Awards ceremony takes place on the 18th of June. The full shortlist can be found here.
