The MMA SMARTIES™ Awards are among the most important global recognitions in modern, impact-driven marketing. They celebrate campaigns that combine creativity, innovation, technology, and measurable business results.
As an initiative of the Marketing + Media Alliance (MMA) Global, the SMARTIES help brands, agencies, media and technology partners systematically advance marketing effectiveness. The SMARTIES DACH 2025 edition honors outstanding work from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, executed between January 2024 and June 2025, that set new standards for marketing excellence.
As a global knowledge partner of MMA, Toluna contributes consumer insights, analytical depth and effectiveness research into the collaboration, supporting the development of more informed and more impactful marketing decisions. Based on a systematic pattern analysis, this whitepaper summarizes the shared characteristics of the DACH 2025’s Gold winners and answers the key question:
What truly defines the DACH Gold Winners 2025 – and why do they win?
Consolidating our findings, we present 6 key principles of Gold winners, with 3 examples of each principle in practice:
1. Intelligent category rethinking at the core
At first glance, the nine Gold Winners appear diverse. Only the pattern analysis reveals a highly consistent signature: DACH campaigns do not win because they are loud, emotional, or technologically flashy. They win because they rethink their categories intelligently, solve problems with precision, and stay deeply aligned with their brands.
Here’s what the pattern data revealed:
We loved how Volkswagen Audi did this with their AI Audit initiative, which turned the neglected world of used-car images into a premium AI-curated brand asset. Instead of fixing dealer behavior case by case, Audi solved a systemic category flaw with an AI “art director” that produced clean, consistent, and high-performing visuals.
Another great example is Schäferei Stücke‘s Rainbow Wool campaign. It transformed a hidden farming reality – the slaughter of gay rams – into a cultural movement that blends craft, fashion, and activism, effectively rethinking three categories at once.
Finally, Screen2Save did an incredible job with their Real-Time Child Alert System campaign. They turned everyday media like in-car screens, retail media, and DOOH into Germany’s first automated, geo-targeted alert system for missing children. This shifted the category from advertising inventory to public safety infrastructure.
2. Human truth as a strategic filter
The most effective DACH campaigns start with the real human problem behind the marketing challenge. Human truth acts as a strategic anchor that ensures ideas feel authentic rather than manufactured. According to the pattern data, 6/9 winning campaigns were grounded in human truth.
The takeaway? Prioritize insight before idea. DACH’s Gold winners addressed problems people genuinely have, not problems marketers wish they had. Like the increasing spread of fake news. Telekom tackled this intelligently with their campaign, Activating a Nation against Fake News. They began with an insight: 70% of people believe that others fall for fake news, while only 16% believe they themselves do. The campaign closes the “self-immunity” gap, reframing disinformation as a personal threat.
Bepanthen Eye Drops was another testament with their Game Changer with One Shot commercial, which was based on a real gamer insight: dry eyes kill performance. The brand repositioned a medical product as a performance tool for a community under constant visual strain.
The Real-Time Child Alert System by Screen2Save mentioned above also exemplifies this principle. The campaign was rooted in perhaps the most urgent human truth: when a child goes missing, every minute counts.
3. Cultural precision beats data density
While many regions increasingly rely on technical targeting (more data, more segments, more personalization) DACH winners achieve precision through cultural logic. They focus on communities, contexts and behaviors, not demographic clusters. Relevance emerges where cultural meaning lives, creating impact not through data density but through deep cultural understanding.
The pattern data tells us:
The Rainbow Wool campaign we shared above reflects this principle well: it reached LGBTQ+ communities, allies, and craft/fashion microcultures, creating cultural clusters with identity relevance.
As did McDonald’s x Knossi’s Monopoly: The Great Prize Show. It targeted the creator and streaming community instead of just targeting ‘youth.’ Twitch and Discord culture replaced demographic segmentation here.
Rounding off this section is #WURSTPROMOTER by Rügenwalder Mühle. It did a fantastic job activating Swiftie fan culture via hidden clues and social codes, using fandom as a precision target rather than age.
What this tells us is that winning campaigns reach people through cultural meaning – in communities, contexts and moments, not through statistical segmentation.
4. AI for clarity, not for show
Technology often serves the role of showpiece in many markets. The DACH Gold winners, however, take a different approach: they use tech to create orientation, not spectacle. AI and data simplify rather than overwhelm. With this mindset, usefulness becomes the new creativity. According to the pattern data, 5/9 winners make use of tech/AI in a meaningful way. These campaigns use technology to increase relevance and remove friction rather than a mere spectacle.
Audi’s AI Audit strikes again here. Custom AI filtered out bad dealer images, selected the best shot, and synced listings in real time, automating brand consistency.
Unilever (Magnum)’s Ice Ice Maybe? Is another great example: it used weather, footfall, and product-level REWE sales data to trigger dynamic media only where impulse potential was high.
And once again, Screen2Save‘s Real-Time Child Alert System’s automated geo-targeting and dynamic radius expansion deserve a shout out for turning media technology into a clarity engine powering real-time alerts.
5. Emotion and storytelling as purposeful amplifiers
In contrast to other regions where large narratives or emotional dramatization drive effectiveness, the DACH Gold winners see storytelling and emotional evocation through a different lens: not as central mechanics to inflate campaigns, but as selective tools used only where they reinforce relevance and clarity.
Here’s what the pattern data reveals:
The top 3 campaigns that exemplify this? Telekom’s Activating a Nation Against Fake News, Rainbow Wool, and Screen2Save’s Real-Time Child Alert System. The first uses an emotional metaphor to make invisible harm tangible, while the second creates a strong emotional and narrative pull through activism, identity, and craft. The third positions emotional urgency as inherent, not constructed, turning emotional into a natural amplifier.
6. Balance innovation with consistency
Innovation is often understood as a departure from what already exists. But to the DACH Gold winners, innovation feels like a natural evolution rather than a complete reboot. To them, rethinking categories does not mean abandoning the brand. The campaigns change the playing field, but never their core values. This blend of fresh impulses and brand-true clarity makes fresh consistency one of the region’s strongest patterns (with 6/9 winning campaigns incorporating it).
From McDonald’s x Knossi’s Monopoly, which reinvents a classic promotion as live entertainment, to Telekom’s campaign that extends the brand’s purpose-driven role into societal responsibility, the Gold winners modernized boldly yet on-brand. Audi’s AI Audit did this brilliantly too by translating Audi’s design standards into AI logic and making even low-glamour images feel premium and consistent.
What winners are made of
Viewed as a whole, the DACH Gold winners 2025 reveal a clear, highly consistent profile. These campaigns do not rely on a single mechanic, but on a precise interplay of principles.
This synthesis defines what sets the DACH winners apart and why their effectiveness is so consistently strong. They may not be the loudest or most emotional campaigns globally – but they are among the most strategically sound and thoughtfully crafted. They’re examples of creativity that thinks clearly, feels deeply, and lands perfectly.
Looking ahead
The developments across this year’s Gold winners, combined with global shifts, point toward a marketing landscape in which clarity, cultural precision, and brand truth continue to define DACH’s competitive strength – but with new impulses shaping the next wave of excellence. Here’s what we predict moving forward:
Overall, DACH will continue to rely on precision, context, and brand truth – the region’s long-term advantage in an increasingly volatile market.
