Campaign
Category:
Grand Prix
Best Online Brand: B2B
Haymarket has a long-term strategy for paid content to be its primary revenue stream and tasked Campaign’s editorial team with increasing subscriber engagement and the sales team with driving subscriber yields on the strength of higher usage by large corporates. Editorial's target was to increase subscriber weighted engagement score, a key internal metric that measures number of site visits and stories read per user. Haymarket also wanted to elevate the Campaign brand globally and asked the editorial, branded content, and sales teams to collaborate on Campaign House at Cannes, with a brief to drive growth to fund the new venue.
Campaign’s journalism is the bedrock of their subscriber offer. The team broke scoops including Accenture being axed from TfL’s agency review after dropping DEI targets and M&C Saatchi’s secret search for a new CEO. Their editorial leaders set the agenda with powerful commentary such as Maisie McCabe’s “I can’t believe I still have to write columns about this shit” about the lack of senior female creatives and Gideon Spanier on “Why has Group M lost its way for so long?”
The team also produced more in-depth Market Reports, including talent series “This Is Adland” and “End of the Big Six” about Omnicom’s IPG takeover. The Campaign Red data team innovated by launching an agency School Reports historical data tracker and new art director Paul Frost created a fresh look for flagship projects such as Faces to Watch and bespoke branding for each weekly podcast episode to drive listens. Commercially, Campaign’s biggest conference, Media 360, generated record revenues, with speakers including Made In Chelsea entrepreneur Jamie Laing.
The team took a “cover star” approach at Campaign House where they grilled Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun on-stage in his only interview of Cannes week. They hosted 20+ live sessions and 1,000+ guests, with highlights including a Google rooftop sustainability event and daily live Instagram show. They also launched In-House Agency of the Year Awards as they sought growth to offset the squeeze on agency holding companies. After reporting on thousands of redundancies, Campaign offered free six-month subscriptions to people who lost their jobs in January 2026.
Subscriptions became Campaign’s biggest revenue line with 6% growth in 2025 – the team’s sixth consecutive year of subs revenue growth. The Campaign team smashed engagement targets as monthly active subscribers rose 10% and subscriber weighted engagement score increased 13%. Weekly podcast downloads grew 47%.
The commercial team beat budget in a tough year for the ad industry and had a record Q4. Innovative partnerships ranged from roundtables to video for clients including Bloomberg, Pinterest, and TikTok
Campaign remain committed to inclusion and sustainability and increased entries for Campaign’s Ad Net Zero and Media For All Awards despite a DEI rollback in the wider world. Campaign also supported trusted journalism as a founding member of The News Alliance.