WARC says Asia-Pacific leads with the most shortlisted entries (38), followed by North America (37), Europe (27), Middle East and Africa (18) and Latin America (10).
Category-wise, Strategic Thinking has the most shortlisted campaigns (24), followed by Cultural Impact (16), Instant Impact (15), Long-term Growth (13), Partnerships & Sponsorships (12), Channel Pioneer (12), Customer Experience (10), Brand Purpose (8), Use of Data (7), Business-to-Business (6), Channel Integration (5) and Path-to-Purchase (2), says WARC.
John Bizzell, Awards Lead at WARC, says, "Guided by the universal frameworks of the Creative Effectiveness and B2B Effectiveness Ladders, our five amazing regional juries have drawn on their expertise and knowledge to judge diligently and with rigour to select the shortlists. Winning a WARC award isn't easy, so all shortlisted entrants should be hugely proud of their work getting to this stage."
The winners of the Bronze, Silver and Gold awards across all five regions will be revealed from Tuesday, 29 April. All Gold winners from the five regions will progress to compete at a Global level to be awarded the coveted Grands Prix, the ultimate recognition for marketing success. The Grand Prix winners will be announced online on Tuesday, 13 May, via WARC's Effectiveness Show. The winners will be selected by a panel made up of all the regional jury chairs together with other regional judges.
According to WARC, the panel comprises:
- Matt Che, Chief Marketing Officer, Budweiser, APAC — APAC jury chair and chair of the Global Grand Jury
- Christoffer Rönnblad, Chief Marketing Officer, Nordics, McDonald's, Nordics — Europe jury chair
- Diana Frost, Global Chief Growth Officer, Kraft Heinz, Global — North America jury chair
- Gabriel Barrio, Commercial Manager, UNACEM, Peru
- Marina Prieto, Sr Director Brand, Insights, Media and Trade Marketing LATAM, PedidosYa, LATAM — Latin America jury chair
- Maurice Igugu, Chief Marketing Officer, Sterling Bank, Nigeria
- Nthabi Motsoeneng, Chief Marketing Officer Africa and Middle East, Pernod-Ricard, Africa and Middle East — Africa and Middle East jury chair
- Talitha Rutten, Global Client Partner, Meta, Global
- Teman Evans, Global Chief of Design, General Mills, Global, and
- Venus Teoh Kim Wei, Executive Vice President of Marketing, Suntory Pepsico Vietnam Beverage, Vietnam.