Bristol creative agency SIM7 has swept the board this awards season, scooping three prestigious international prizes for a brand campaign which ‘redefines executive education marketing’.

The trio of awards, all won for the IESE Business School’s Real Leadership brand campaign, include first place in the Brand Campaign category at the Digital Communication Awards, Best Integration of Purposeful Marketing at the CMI Content Marketing Awards, and a ‘Búho’ award for Brand Strategy at Educafestival.

Each welcomed entries from around the world. Fierce competition for the top spots came from Ketchum, MSLGROUP, Weber Shandwick and a rollcall of other major global agencies.

Says Professor Dr. Ana Adi, Chair of the Jury for the Digital Communication Awards 2024, “IESE Business School’s Real Leadership campaign redefines executive education marketing. Through digital platforms, it boosts global visibility and underscores the school’s core human values, cleverly critiquing the past decade’s ‘hustle’ mindset. This campaign establishes a new benchmark for the future of leadership training”.

Campaign rationale
The brand campaign takes an honest, authentic and human approach which was conceived as an antidote to the clichéd ‘business speak’ creative that has dominated the sector in recent years. Assets include OOH adverts deployed across the world in Europe and Latin America, a major podcast, landing pages, brochures, Google Max ads, campaign videos and more.

Oriol Gil, IESE’s Brand & Content Senior Manager says, “The world of MBA and executive education is changing fast, with a more nuanced audience profile and expectations. SIM7 created a major campaign for us that pushed the boundaries of our brand guidelines and created a completely new strategy”.

Results
By using an authentic narrative and tapping into the genuine concerns and
motivations of business leaders, it resonated with IESE’s core audiences and has delivered substantial results in the form of awareness, enquiries and admissions. Its main campaign video has attracted 3+ million views, and season one of its podcast consistently ranks in the top 30 of the Spotify/Apple leadership and management charts.

SIM7’s Simeon de la Torre is proud of the campaign and the recognition it has earnt, “ As an agency that works with higher and business education clients around the world, winning these three awards is a huge honour for us. We knew from the start that this had to be a campaign with cut-through, and that pure creativity wasn’t enough.

“It was a huge strategic branding exercise that brought together all our skills in messaging, design and positioning, which ultimately spawned something really different with a big dollop of humour and heart”.

Notes

SIM7 is a Bristol-based creative agency that works with clients around the world in sectors including education, property, technology and more: sim7creative.co.uk

Founded in 2017, the agency uses language to empower design and drives growth by creating brands, campaigns and strategy. SIM7 currently employs six people, has increased its turnover significantly in the past 12 months and is set to build its international client base even further
in 2024/25.

About SIM7

We use language to empower design.