The Marketing Achievement Awards is an annual celebration of marketing as a strategic business discipline. The competition aims to set a benchmark for marketing standards by recognising those marketing initiatives that have made the most valuable contributions to their businesses’ and society.
To kick off the third season of the awards, post-pandemic, it was time for a refreshed positioning and updated identity to elevate and simplify the brand while setting the benchmark for marketing excellence.
Setting out to build marketing’s stature in business, shape the industry, and promote it as an illustrious career choice, the new brand had to be sophisticated, creatively curious, catalytic, and professional.
At the heart of our brand refresh for MAA lies a powerful inspiration, the awards body's brand positioning: "Marketing that means business". It's the foundation upon which we built a visual identity that speaks volumes.
If you look closely at the MAA logo, you'll notice a subtle but significant element – the spotlight. This spotlight is emblematic of the MAA Board's role in casting a radiant light on the remarkable achievements of both clients and their marketing partners. Just as a spotlight illuminates a stage, we spotlight the excellence achieved in the marketing arena.
Our visual language draws from the world of theatre and performance. The imagery of lights, stages, and the triangular beam reflects the impactful and transformative nature of marketing initiatives. Just as a well-placed spotlight can create stunning visual effects, effective marketing can produce resounding impacts on businesses and society.
We wanted to convey that MAA is not just about creativity for the sake of it; it's about creativity that delivers tangible business solutions. The brand communicates that marketing drives real business results, and this duality was at the core of our approach.
The colour palette is bold and bright. Purple represents leadership and creativity, as well as being respectable and original. The purple is complemented with secondary colours, which are a combination of bright and muted hues, creating a technological nuance. Purple is used mainly for the primary brand, with highlights from the secondary colours. The secondary colours can be used predominantly for campaigns or categories.
The icon becomes a central point of the creation of the patterns, that either radiate from the centre or can be stepped and repeated to create various geometric patterns. The pattern’s colours can be adapted to use other combinations of the colour palette.
Imagery themes used for the MAA brand are centred around lights, similar to being at the awards evening, which adds a technology element. There is also no direct focus on people; they are portrayed in an indirect manner through silhouettes and crops.
By recognising the most valuable contributions to businesses and society, MAA underscores the pivotal role of marketing in driving growth and transformation. The Marketing Achievement Awards (MAA) evening is more than just a gala event; it's a celebration of the profound impact and successes of the marketing industry.
All the event collateral followed the theme of ‘Marketing that Means Business’, shining a light on all the nominees and winners. We ran a live social media campaign, highlighting all the winners throughout the night.
The design of the Marketing Achievement Awards trophy was created using the shapes of the brand icon. This structured shape is representative of the methodical and business-focused side of the awards. The terrazzo tile texture, more abstract and artistic in nature, represents creativity, fully combining the analytical and creative dynamics of the MAA.
The brand’s origin in light is also represented in the prism shape of the trophy, making these objects refractors of light in a figurative sense, highlighting the marketing excellence of brands and individuals.
