Excellence in Marketing Awards

2025 Excellence in Marketing Awards

Thank you for joining us for a night of fun as the American Marketing Association San Francisco relaunched the Excellence in Marketing Awards. Congratulations to all the night’s winners!

 

2025 Excellence in Marketing Awards Winners

 

Next Big Thing

e.l.f. Beauty, community nominee

 

Marketer of the Year

Netflix, community nominee

 

Best in Show

PayPal: PayPal Consumer Pay Everywhere, GSTV

 

Most Innovative Marketing Campaign

Waymo: Waymo fortune cookies, community nominee

 

Bootstrapped Campaign of the Year

Taelor AI: AI Intelligence Meets Human Intuition: How Startup Taelor Wins ChatGPT Searches w/ Zero-budget

 

Cause Marketing/Community Enrichment

e.l.f. Beauty: Change The Board Game, community nominee

 

Best Performance Campaign

Dialpad: LinkedIn CTV Brand to Sequential Demand Campaign

 

Best Local Campaign

Gold Bar Spirits Company: Gold Bar Whiskey’s Cocktail Class: Skyline Views and City History

 

President’s Awards

Irene Sanchez and Sukriti Khosla

 

Content Marketing World Giveaway

Jussara O.

 

Thank you to everyone who nominated a brand or campaign you worked on or loved. Nominations came from teams who worked on the projects, as well as community members celebrating their favorite campaigns of the year from any of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties.

And based on entries received, AMA SF added two new categories: Best Performance Campaign and Best Local Campaign.

 

2025 Excellence in Marketing Awards Finalists

 

Brand Marketer of the Year

Netflix, community nominee

e.l.f. Beauty, community nominee

 

Next Big Thing

e.l.f. Beauty, community nominee

Netflix, community nominee

 

Best in Show

Pixar: Inside Out 2, community nominee

PayPal: PayPal Consumer Pay Everywhere, GSTV

Netflix: Squid Game 2, community nominee

Levi’s: REIIMAGINE – Chapter 1: Launderette, community nominee

 

Most Innovative Marketing Campaign

Netflix: Squid Game 2, community nominee

Waymo: Waymo fortune cookies, community nominee

 

Bootstrapped Campaign of the Year

Taelor AI: AI Intelligence Meets Human Intuition: How Startup Taelor Wins ChatGPT Searches w/ Zero-budget

California College of the Arts: Futures of CCA

 

Cause Marketing/Community Enrichment

ECS for Seniors: For You – ECS for Seniors, 300FeetOut

Investing Coach W: Investing Coach W

e.l.f. Beauty: Change The Board Game, community nominee

Moms Against Poverty: Moms Against Poverty

 

Best Performance Campaign

PetSmart, Elanco: PetSmart – Elanco Co-Branded Programmatic, GSTV

Delta Dental Insurance: For Whatever Makes You Smile

Dialpad: LinkedIn CTV Brand to Sequential Demand Campaign

Albertsons: Albertsons Companies Omni Shopping, GSTV

Shutterfly: Shutterfly’s Picture-Perfect Growth, Chalice AI x Rain the Growth Agency

 

Best Local Campaign

Stanford Jazz Festival: 2024 Stanford Jazz Festival, 300FeetOut

Gold Bar Spirits Company: Gold Bar Whiskey’s Cocktail Class: Skyline Views and City History

And here are our judges:

Kristy LoRusso, CMO, Kaiser Permanente

Rachel Heit, CMO, SF Giants

Jakki Geiger, 3x CMO, GTM Advisor

Preethy Padmanabhan, CMO, Emergent Ventures

Gretchen Koch, The Talent Studios, ex-Peet’s Coffee

Marc Viale, Lab415, ex-CGO The RealReal

Bay Area & National Industry Experts

Eric Weidner, Immediate Past President, AMA SF

Thomas Moyer, President, AMA SF

Susan Edmonds, President, sfBIG

Dr. Ty’ya Pettis, President, AMA New Jersey

Alok Jain, EVP, AMA DFW

Aboli Rajendra, Head of Lifecycle & Product Marketing, Credible

Kyle King, Sr. Director Global Marketing, SF Travel

Thank you again to our incredible nominees, finalists, judges, sponsors, volunteers and guests for helping us celebrate the boldest marketing across San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and the entire Bay Area.

Get Digital Swag — Exclusive Offers for EIMA Attendees and AMA SF

 

Taelor – 30% Off Your First Month

Finalist Taelor is offering 30% off their 7-item/month menswear plan, curated by AI + professional stylists.

Use code AMA30 by Sunday, August 31 to ensure your look is on point. Learn more

 

Content Marketing World – $100 Off

Join the industry’s best in San Diego, Sept 15–17 and save $100 with code AMASF. Sign up here

 

Let Us Know How We Did

Help us make future events even better by taking a quick moment to share your thoughts on the AMA SF Excellence in Marketing Awards. It only takes a minute—and your input means a lot to us!

👉 [Click Here To Answer A Short Survey] 

 

Thanks everyone for coming out! Follow us on LinkedIn for upcoming events – August 21 Topgolf, September 18 Marketing Hackathon, and more!

Interested in getting involved? Contact us at awards@amasf.org

The AMA SF Team

Accessibility / Accommodations

To ensure accessibility for all participants, AMA SF maintains a no-pets policy at our events. We recognize the essential role of service animals for individuals with disabilities and will make reasonable accommodations to support their participation.

If you have a disability and plan to attend with a service animal, please contact us at info@amasf.org so we can discuss any specific needs or arrangements to facilitate accessibility for all attendees.

Recording Notice:

This event was professionally recorded. By attending, attendees consented to potentially appear in video footage or photos that may be used by AMA SF for marketing or promotional purposes.