We’re proud to share that Carat has been shortlisted five times at this year’s Media Week Awards 2025 – a showcase of the most outstanding work across the UK media industry.
These nominations reflect the creativity, strategic thinking and collaborative spirit at the heart of Carat. Every campaign is built on a foundation of insight and innovation, designed not just to capture attention, but to create meaningful connections between brands, culture and audiences that drive measurable growth.
The Media Week Awards are one of the industry’s biggest celebrations of creativity and effectiveness. To see Carat’s work recognised here – not once, but five times – speaks to the ambition and energy our people bring every day. These campaigns didn’t just turn heads; they made a real impact for our clients and their audiences.
The five shortlists span three standout campaigns that showcase the strengthen of our strategic and creative capabilities across our varied clients.
Carat X Co-op
Life, death and rock and roll - Co-op Funeralcare
Shortlisted for: Best Advertiser-Funded Programme or Entertainment sponsored by Infinitum Entertainment & Best Use of Content: Budget between £250K - £750K
Co-op Funeralcare faced a unique challenge: How do you encourage conversations about a topic that audiences actively avoid discussing? Insight revealed that while 91% of UK adults had contemplated morality, over 50% had never discussed funeral wishes with loved ones.
We needed to create content that would encourage people to actively engage with the topic of funerals, in a way that would educate and engage without feeling like advertising. We selected three celebrity pairings and partnered with Channel 4 to create three 10-minute episodes in a way that balanced education with entertainment.
The collaboration created genuinely groundbreaking content where celebrities blind-planned each other's funerals without knowing their wishes. Channel 4 took the unprecedented step of extending content beyond their owned platforms to YouTube, Meta, and TikTok. Co-op put real funeral directors on-screen, providing authenticity that simply couldn't be scripted.
The collaboration delivered exceptional results, with 63% of viewers feeling more comfortable to discuss funeral wishes and 69% of the exposed were happy to watch rather than skip. We broke the cultural taboo and moved funeral planning into mainstream discourse. Generating 10 million+ views, we succeeded in making funeral planning something that people could feel confident in discussing.
Carat X Cheez-It
Crunch it, taste it, feel it, Cheez-It
Shortlisted for: Best Use of Audio sponsored by Radiocentre & Media Creativity – Launch
The UK’s salty snack market is a brutal place and, unfortunately for Cheez-It, they were a nobody in Britain. With HFSS restrictions looming, we needed to help the brand to disrupt the category and establish major player status – quickly.
Our strategic approach centered around creating a sensory experience of eating Cheez-It as memorable as the name itself, creating lasting recall. By masterminding a creative ecosystem where every touchpoint reinforces the same tantalising message – that Cheez-It delivers an unmatched sensory experience – we built a creative architecture to embed the brand into British snacking culture, permanently.
We created the Electronic Dance Music track, “Crunch It. Taste It. Feel It. Cheez-It.” A tune so good that it would live rent-free in people’s heads. Radio partnerships amplified the addictive track, and Spotify’s 3D audio enhanced the listener’s experience.
Our audio innovation exceeded all objectives, contributing to the biggest NPD launch in large-sharing snacks in four years. We achieved major player status while building future-proof brand equity that outperforms traditional approaches and survives regulatory restrictions. We proved that strategic sound design doesn't just get heard - it gets craved, turning an unknown American import into Britain's most wanted snack.
Carat X Pringles
Rising stars: turning the losers into winners
Shortlisted for: Large Collaboration: Over £750K
The challenge for Pringles was to make gaming fun again for everyone, not just the elite players dominating every leaderboard. What had once been a fun escape had turned into a frustration factory, as casual gamers felt permanently outclassed. The question revolved around how Pringles could sponsor gaming, whilst simultaneously making gaming fun for everyone once again.
Enter “Rising Stars” – a gaming tournament that would break all the rules. Pro gamers would be deliberately sabotaged with hilarious challenges voted on by viewers, to give everyday players a shot at glory.
The concept required three superpowers – Carat, Pringles and Yahoo. Yahoo delivered the tech infrastructure and multi-platform distribution power, Pringles brought the gaming talent and cultural credibility, and Carat orchestrated the chaos across 10 unique markets.
Keeping the Pringles personality consistent while adapting culturally for the differing markets was the hardest part, but we succeeded in creating something that felt truly united. The collaboration delivered exceptional results, with a 13% increase in Pringle’s status as “the number 1 food brand in gaming”. The campaign reached 102 million people, demonstrating the power of combined partner capabilities at scale. With over 10,000 active tournament participants and 2.2 million clicks to the hub, it showed the power of authentic community engagement above passive viewing.
Looking ahead
We’re incredibly proud of our teams, clients and partners who helped to make these campaigns happen. These shortlists represent more than just award recognition – they highlight our commitment to solving client challenges with ideas that are strategically sharp, creatively daring and delivered with precision.
Reinforcing Carat’s position as a leader in the UK media landscape, we are continuing to set the bar for what effective, culture-shaping media can achieve.
We’re looking forward to celebrating with the industry at the Media Week Awards 2025 ceremony later this year. For the full shortlist, click here.
