2025 RELAUNCH · San Francisco
Netflix, e.l.f. Beauty, PayPal, and Waymo and more!
In 2025 we brought back the legendary AMA SF Excellence in Marketing Awards (the EIMAs). Nine categories. Seven winning brands and campaigns. A judging panel led by working Bay Area CMOs. And a night of celebration for the best of the best of the bay. Here are the winners, finalists, judges, sponsors, photos, recap and more. Be part of our history in 2026!
2025 Winners
Marketer of the Year
Netflix
Community nominee
Best in Show
PayPal
PayPal Consumer Pay Everywhere
Submitted with GSTV
Most Innovative Marketing Campaign
Waymo
Waymo fortune cookies
Community nominee
Next Big Thing
e.l.f. Beauty
Community nominee
Cause Marketing / Community Enrichment
e.l.f. Beauty
Change The Board Game
Community nominee
Bootstrapped Campaign of the Year
Taelor AI
AI Intelligence Meets Human Intuition: How Startup Taelor Wins ChatGPT Searches with Zero Budget
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 · Sukriti Khosla
For sustained service to AMA SF
2025 Finalists
Every campaign and marketer that reached the finalist round in 2025, by category.
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 — with 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
- California College of the Arts — Futures of CCA
Cause Marketing / Community Enrichment
- ECS for Seniors — For You — with 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 — with GSTV
- Delta Dental Insurance — For Whatever Makes You Smile
- Dialpad — LinkedIn CTV Brand to Sequential Demand Campaign
- Albertsons — Albertsons Companies Omni Shopping — with GSTV
- Shutterfly — Shutterfly’s Picture-Perfect Growth — with Chalice AI x Rain the Growth Agency
Best Local Campaign
- Stanford Jazz Festival — 2024 Stanford Jazz Festival — with 300FeetOut
- Gold Bar Spirits Company — Cocktail Class: Skyline Views and City History
2025 Co-Chairs and Judging Panel
A working panel of Bay Area CMOs, AMA chapter leaders from across the country, and senior practitioners. Judges scored independently and were recused from any category with a direct conflict.
Executive Panel
- Kristy LoRusso, CMO, Kaiser Permanente
- Rachel Heit, CMO, San Francisco Giants
- Jakki Geiger, 3x CMO, GTM Advisor
- Preethy Padmanabhan, CMO, Emergent Ventures
- Gretchen Koch, The Talent Studios; formerly Peet’s Coffee
- Marc Viale, Lab415; formerly CGO, The RealReal
Bay Area & National Industry Experts
- Thomas Moyer, President, AMA SF
- Eric Weidner, Immediate Past 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, Senior Director, Global Marketing, SF Travel
Co-Chairs
- Melissa Grimshaw-Vargas, VP Partnerships, AMA SF and Founder, Launchwise
- Kristin Young, Board Member, sfBig and Principal Client Partner, Life360
2025 Sponsors
The AMA SF Excellence in Marketing Awards 2025 was made possible by these partners. Sponsorship keeps the program open to the entire Bay Area marketing community. We thank you immensely for your support!
Workbox, Lyft Media, Nativo, Media Now Interactive, StackAdapt, Seedtag, Kargo, GSTV, Justin Chu, Peakbound Studio, Ad Venture Promotions, One Way Media Solutions, Taelor, Spark Social SF, Content Marketing Institute
The 2026 AMA SF Excellence in Marketing Awards return September 2026
The chapter is bringing the EIMAs back on Wednesday, September 24, 2026 in San Francisco. Nominations open June 15, 2026 and close July 31, 2026.
If your team shipped extraordinary marketing work in the Bay Area this year, you deserved to be recognized. Self-nominate, nominate a colleague, or surface a campaign you wish more people knew about.