2025 B2B Marketing Innovation Award winners, sponsored by Oktopost

It’s time to have fun the campaigns that redefined what’s doable in B2B advertising and marketing, with the 2025 B2B Advertising Innovation Awards.

B2B has by no means been extra inventive, human, or impactful. Throughout industries, manufacturers are activating worker voices, collaborating with influencers, and harnessing AI to inform tales that actually join.

And it’s about time this work bought the highlight it deserves. As a result of in B2B, we don’t have fun nice advertising and marketing practically sufficient.

That’s why Oktopost sponsored the B2B Advertising Innovation Awards, to honor the manufacturers and groups who pushed boundaries, impressed their audiences, and proved that creativity and measurable influence can go hand in hand.

After a whole bunch of nominations, our panel of skilled judges, together with CMOs and VPs from a few of the world’s main B2B organizations, chosen seven profitable campaigns, alongside a exceptional group of finalists and honorable mentions. Collectively, they set the benchmark for the way forward for B2B advertising and marketing.

What makes a standout B2B advertising and marketing marketing campaign?

• Significant innovation: Contemporary, inventive concepts that made B2B really feel daring, human, and unforgettable.
• Social-first technique: Social wasn’t an afterthought; it was the engine driving consciousness, engagement, and measurable outcomes.
• Activated advocates: These campaigns turned staff and executives into trusted storytellers and model ambassadors.
• Measurement of success: Each winner confirmed clear, quantifiable influence, from engagement and attain to pipeline, model elevate, and neighborhood progress.
• Model management: Every marketing campaign raised the bar for a way B2B manufacturers present up authentically and creatively.
• Artistic excellence: Behind each standout marketing campaign is a group of daring thinkers turning technique into tales that transfer audiences.

These awards are proof that B2B is something however boring. So, with out additional ado…

Get impressed by the 2025 B2B Advertising Innovation Award-winning campaigns

Akamai Applied sciences: Surf Report & Influencer Activation at Black Hat

Akamai Technologies reworked its presence at Black Hat 2025 right into a social-first storytelling engine. The campaign was constructed round two pillars: the Surf Report video collection, a each day collection delivering real-time insights from the present flooring, and a creator partnership with cybersecurity chief Confidence Staveley and her mentee. This twin method blended skilled credibility with creator authenticity, turning a technical convention into an enticing social expertise.

A teaser that includes a father-daughter security duo constructed early buzz, whereas Surf Report episodes and creator collaborations saved the dialog going all through the occasion. Akamai’s staff and material specialists joined in, showing on digital camera and amplifying content material throughout LinkedIn, YouTube, and past, making certain the story felt each expert-led and human.

By treating individuals, not merchandise, because the core of the story, Akamai proved that cybersecurity can encourage connection. The marketing campaign set a brand new benchmark for occasion storytelling in B2B, merging training, neighborhood, and creativity into one cohesive social narrative.

Finastra: Innovating Finance Collectively at Sibos 2025

At Sibos 2025, Finastra showcased how a world model can mix inventive storytelling with enterprise influence. Centered on its positioning “Innovating Finance Collectively,” the campaign used social media, video storytelling, and colleague advocacy to drive consciousness, engagement, and high-value conferences with key decision-makers.

Two video collection, 60 Seconds at Sibos and Sibos Shorts, turned advanced subjects into brief, participating tales informed by specialists, companions, and shoppers. In the meantime, Fritz, an AI-animated mascot, grew to become the face of the marketing campaign, showing in social movies, on-site activations, and interactive LinkedIn competitions that drew attendees into the model’s narrative. Worker advocacy tied all of it collectively, with gamified challenges and ready-to-share content material empowering colleagues and executives to amplify the marketing campaign’s attain and credibility.

This fuelled spectacular outcomes, together with: 1.66M potential advocacy attain, 164K impressions, practically 19K engagements, and a 50% improve in conferences booked compared to Sibos 2024. Finastra’s method blended playfulness with precision, making monetary software program really feel human, collaborative, and forward-thinking. It’s a blueprint for a way storytelling and advocacy can flip even essentially the most formal trade right into a inventive power on social.

Island: Work{area} of Artwork

On the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo in Barcelona, Island reimagined what a sales space expertise may very well be with their Work{space} of Art marketing campaign. As an alternative of one other product sales space, Island constructed a full creative experience, turning attendees into the art work themselves. Utilizing AI-generated sculpture portraits, every customer’s picture grew to become a part of a residing gallery, telling the story of how Island is remodeling the browser, simply as Picasso reworked artwork.

Every customer acquired their sculpture as a printed postcard and will share it immediately through the Island Enterprise Browser, a intelligent product integration that made participation seamless. The marketing campaign’s trendy aesthetic, mixed with storytelling rooted in creativity and know-how, turned the sales space into one of many occasion’s most photographed and mentioned areas. Staff and executives amplified the expertise on social, extending its influence nicely past the present flooring.

By merging artwork, AI, and viewers participation, Island created a advertising and marketing second that was each experiential and strategic. It proved that once you make your viewers a part of the story, your model turns into unforgettable.

Keyfactor: Now That’s What I Name Digital Belief!

Keyfactor introduced music, humor, and AI collectively in one of the crucial delightfully sudden cybersecurity campaigns of the yr. Now That’s What I Call Digital Trust! was a 10-track tribute album devoted to the unsung heroes of IT, the sysadmins and engineers who hold digital certificates alive (even once they expire at 3 AM). The marketing campaign used humor and nostalgia to show a distinct segment, technical subject right into a inventive celebration of the individuals behind the screens.

Impressed by the enduring Now That’s What I Name Music collection, the Keyfactor group wrote and produced unique songs mixing inside jokes, actual ache factors, and catchy hooks that each safety skilled might relate to. Whereas AI helped generate lyrics and music, the inventive course and storytelling had been purely human, full with customized lyric videos, Spotify playlists, and social-first content material that made cybersecurity really feel unexpectedly enjoyable.

By fusing leisure and experience, Keyfactor reimagined how B2B manufacturers can join emotionally with technical audiences. The marketing campaign proved that creativity, humor, and even somewhat nostalgia could make cybersecurity not simply comprehensible, however genuinely pleasurable.

Leapsome: Progress Begins with Folks, Not Paperwork

Leapsome’s Progress Starts with People, Not Paperwork marketing campaign marked a significant milestone within the firm’s progress, introducing its evolution right into a full individuals platform, together with an HRIS. With a daring technique, the marketing campaign turned a product launch right into a model second that blended human storytelling, information, and advocacy to problem how HR tech advertising and marketing is completed.

The marketing campaign mixed AI-generated Out-of-Home visuals, a virtual HR conference, and influencer collaborations to spark conversations throughout the HR and other people management neighborhood. Partnering with Cassie Kozyrkov and launching the Workforce Developments Report added a robust layer of thought management, whereas Leapsome’s first structured worker advocacy program motivated employees by challenges and incentives to share the story on social and amplify its attain.

By pairing inventive risk-taking with measurable enterprise influence, Leapsome broke the mildew of conventional HR tech campaigns. The end result was a strong showcase of how AI-driven design, daring messaging, and company-wide activation can drive consciousness, engagement, and connection, all whereas preserving individuals on the coronary heart of the story.

Slack: Model Love Marketing campaign

Slack’s Model Love Marketing campaign proved that typically the perfect B2B advertising and marketing doesn’t come from broadcasting, it comes from exhibiting up. Moderately than focusing solely on branded posts, the Slack social group embedded itself within the LinkedIn dialog, including considerate, participating feedback to trade threads and buyer posts. By contributing authentically, not simply publishing, Slack grew to become a part of the neighborhood it serves.

The marketing campaign’s standout second got here by its “Hype Machine” initiative, a inventive program that turned buyer appreciation into shareable storytelling. Slack shocked loyal customers with customised gifts, together with a custom wedding cake for a CEO who had used the platform to plan her wedding ceremony. The end result was viral, organic engagement that celebrated prospects in a manner that felt human, spontaneous, and refreshingly uncorporate.

By prioritizing relationships over attain, Slack confirmed how B2B manufacturers can earn love as an alternative of likes. The marketing campaign redefined what genuine engagement seems like in enterprise advertising and marketing, proving that listening, interacting, and celebrating your customers might be essentially the most highly effective type of storytelling.

Zapier: Zapier Outpost

Zapier’s Outpost marketing campaign reimagined what a B2B occasion may very well be by changing resort ballrooms with the breathtaking backdrop of Zion National Park. The corporate invited 20 creators to a glamping retreat designed for collaboration, co-creation, and connection, the place they constructed actual automations, faux companies, and lasting relationships. The end result was a creator-led experience that blurred the strains between model advertising and marketing, storytelling, and neighborhood constructing.

All through the retreat, Zapier turned hands-on challenges and hackathons into social storytelling moments. Influencers captured genuine content material, not staged testimonials, producing 500K+ views, 374K in attain, $136K in earned media and social worth, 190 shares, and 1.9K feedback throughout LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok. Each put up, video, and story bolstered Zapier’s place on the coronary heart of the AI automation dialog.

Outpost didn’t simply showcase product capabilities; it celebrated creativity and collaboration. By specializing in human connection reasonably than scripted promotion, Zapier constructed a neighborhood of creators who grew to become real advocates for the model, proving that the way forward for B2B affect lies in actual experiences, not campaigns.

Congratulations to the advertising and marketing groups redefining B2B advertising and marketing!

Every of those profitable campaigns proves that B2B advertising and marketing isn’t nearly enterprise, it’s about connection, creativity, and braveness. From AI-powered storytelling to community-driven engagement, these groups are main the way in which ahead.

At Oktopost, we consider standout advertising and marketing deserves greater than applause, it deserves amplification. Congratulations to this yr’s B2B Advertising Innovation Award winners. You’re not simply a part of the dialog, you’re shaping it.

We’re proud to have fun your work, and might’t wait to see the way you proceed shaping the way forward for B2B advertising and marketing.

See you subsequent yr.