Clio Sports Awards Announces 2020 Winners

Clio Sports, the competition honouring creative excellence in sports marketing and advertising on a global scale, today announced the entries that earned the coveted Grand, Gold, Silver and Bronze Clio Sports Awards for 2020.

VaynerMedia has been named Agency of the Year. The agency, together with VaynerProductions, won 14 Clio Sports awards, including three Grand Clios, four Gold, six Silver, and one Bronze. In addition, Budweiser, a VaynerMedia partner, was named Brand of the Year. VaynerMedia’s work for Budweiser won total of three Grand Clio Sports trophies. The agency’s 'The Future Official Sponsor' campaign, which aimed to shrink the pay gap between women’s and men’s sports by way of increasing sponsorships for women’s soccer, earned top honours in Integrated Campaign, Partnerships, Social Media and Sponsorships & Collaborations.

The campaign aimed to shrink the pay gap between women’s and men’s sports by way of increasing sponsorships for women’s soccer. Budweiser also earned a Gold and four Silver awards for 'Dwyane Wade’s Last Swap' as well as a Bronze award for 'Checking In, That’s Whassup.' A final Silver was awarded to Busch’s 'Pit4Busch' campaign.

“Budweiser’s Future Official campaign is important on so many levels,” said Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia. “It is an incredibly powerful business-to-business campaign that used consumers to drive it and, most importantly, it helped close the National Women’s Soccer League’s sponsorship gap. We’re thrilled to have helped our partners at Budweiser drive real change with this culture-shifting work, and grateful to Clio Sports for recognising the importance of this campaign.”

Gary will speak about this work and much more on a panel about the future of storytelling in sports as part of the Clio Sports and Bleacher Report 'The New Sports Marketing Playbook' event today at 2:15 ET. Click here to RSVP.

Gary continued: “Magic happens when you get the right partner, the right internal team, and the truest form of the story, executed in an incredible way. That is the story of these campaigns. We’re very humbled by this recognition and even more focused on continuing to help build Budweiser’s business.”

“Budweiser has been a part of American culture and sports for generations, and as a brand, we’ve never been afraid of making statements that are bigger than beer,” said Monica Rustgi, vice president of marketing, Budweiser. “Our partner VaynerMedia is an extension of our Bud family – helping us tackle an especially unique year for sports with campaigns that had real impact. We are honoured to celebrate this award with them.”

Brazil’s Africa was also a big Clio Sports winner this year, securing Gold for Go Equal movement’s '#GOequal' campaign in Branded Entertainment & Content; SporTV’s 'Let Her Run' in Film and Direct; and AB Inbev / Brahma beer’s 'Pay Per Beer' in Digital/Mobile and Innovation. Notably, the Philadelphia 76ers were the team to beat, scoring in-house honours in Design, Experiential/Events and Social Media.

“We got a lot of interesting entries that pushed creative boundaries in different ways this year,” said Nicole Purcell, president, Clio Awards. “But I think the most important trend I’ve noticed is that the juries rewarded work that moved the needle in tangible ways. There is an appetite to celebrate creative executions that make a measurable impact on important issues like gender equality and social justice and that give athletes a platform to share their passions and personalities. I’m excited to see our trophies going to projects that connected with audiences on a deeper level than what we’ve seen in the past.”

The full list of 2020 Grand Clio Sports Award winners are:

Design: Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai for Nike with 'BEIJING 99'

Direct: AKQA for Google with 'Google Offside Museum'

Integrated Campaign: VaynerMedia for Budweiser with 'The Future Official Sponsor'

Partnerships, Sponsorships & Collaborations: VaynerMedia for Budweiser with 'The Future Official Sponsor'

Public Relations: Fingerpaint Marketing for Concussion Legacy Foundation with 'Tackle Can Wait'

Social Media: VaynerMedia for Budweiser with 'The Future Official Sponsor

All of this year’s Clio Sports Gold, Silver, Bronze and Shortlist recipients as well as the Agency, Brand and Team Of the Year Finalists are available here.