Scroll down to find the categories and submit your work for recognition. Work done between July 1, 2023, and December 31, 2024, is eligible. Get in the game!
Anyone can attend -and we hope you do- but it’s more fun when you’re a finalist!
SAVE THE DATE – April 24, 2025 – Stay Tuned for More Details
Recognizing Marketing Excellence in Cincinnati
The AMA Cincinnati Pinnacle Awards are a highlight of our chapter year and our chance to recognize, reward, and celebrate regional excellence in marketing.
This year, the festivities will include a new twist, as ALL finalists will be leaving with a ranked trophy. We’ve also tweaked and added new categories, so be sure to review the options carefully and nominate your best and brightest!
Watch for announcements about the date and location of the party, but start working on your nominations TODAY!
Click Below To Review Last Year Winners and Start Brainstorming Ideas for Your Entry!
Affiliate Your Brand with Marketing Excellence
Want to connect your brand to top marketing talent in Cincinnati? Consider supporting this program and event as a sponsor or partner.
Visit our Partnerships page to learn more or get in touch with us.
2025 Pinnacle Awards Schedule
AMA Cincinnati Pinnacle Awards Ceremony
We’re excited to bring the Pinnacle Awards to our community of marketers within the Greater Cincinnati area! We’re working behind the scenes to ensure a fun-filled celebration for our winners and marketing community!
- When: April 24, 2025
- Where: TBD
Interested in helping plan and execute this exciting event? Contact pinnacle@amacincinnati.org
2025 Categories
Best Use of Video (NEW CATEGORY)
This award celebrates excellence in video as a storytelling medium, showcasing campaigns that creatively and effectively utilized video to engage audiences and achieve marketing goals. Whether through short-form social videos, brand documentaries, or high-impact commercials, this category recognizes the power of visual storytelling. Include details on the strategy, creative process, audience engagement, and measurable impact of the video.
Best Use of Social Media (NEW CATEGORY)
This award is for brands that know how to craft standout content designed for social media. Whether it’s reels, stories, posts, or cross-platform campaigns, this category celebrates creative storytelling, audience engagement, and platform-savvy strategies. Tell us how your campaign captured attention, sparked conversations, and drove meaningful interactions. Share details on your goals, creative execution, and the measurable impact of your social media efforts.
Best Data-Driven Campaign (NEW CATEGORY)
The Best Data Driven Campaign Award category honors marketing campaigns that leverage data and analytics to inform strategy, execution, and optimization. Whether through customer insights, predictive modeling, or real-time adjustments, this award recognizes how data was used to achieve impactful results. Share how data was collected, analyzed, and applied to drive campaign success. Be sure to highlight the metrics, tools, and measurable outcomes demonstrating the campaign’s success.
Best Experiential Campaign (NEW CATEGORY)
The Best Experiential Marketing Campaign recognizes outstanding marketing campaigns that create immersive, memorable experiences for audiences. Whether through live events, virtual activations, pop-ups, or hybrid experiences, this category celebrates the ability to connect with audiences on an emotional level and drive meaningful engagement. Tell us how your experience brought the brand to life, engaged audiences, and delivered real impact. Share details about the concept, audience response, and measurable outcomes.
Best Community Impact Campaign (NEW CATEGORY)
The Best Community Impact Campaign category highlights marketing campaigns that drive meaningful change beyond inclusivity, impacting areas such as health, education, environmental sustainability, and community well-being. It honors marketers who have leveraged their platforms to address pressing societal needs and create lasting positive change. Whether your initiative raised awareness, drove advocacy, or supported a cause, share your strategy, the steps you took to engage stakeholders, and the measurable difference your campaign made in creating a better world. See 2023 Winners in a Similar Category
Best Inclusive Campaign (NEW CATEGORY)
This Best Inclusive Marketing Campaign recognizes marketing campaigns that prioritize inclusivity by showcasing diverse voices, cultures, and perspectives. It celebrates marketers who have crafted authentic, resonant campaigns that engage underrepresented or marginalized audiences, fostering a sense of belonging. Please include details on the strategy, creative execution, and measurable impact of your campaign.
2023 Special Recognition Winners
Best Collegiate/Student Marketing Plan, Campaign, and/or Program
Calling all students! Many have term papers, projects, or capstone courses that require creating a marketing plan, campaign, and an extent of execution. Share your work with us to be recognized! Please include results on any execution of the marketing plan. See 2023 Winners
Best Brand Launch or Rebranding Effort
The Best Brand Launch or Rebranding Effort award celebrates the achievement of your organization’s storytelling and promise-keeping. Whether you’re a startup or a decades-old company going through a turnaround or rebirth, share your brand or rebrand process with us–from old versus new, graphics, messaging, rollout and education. Oh, and don’t forget applicable metrics! See 2023 Winners
Best Content Marketing
The Best Content Marketing award is for those who know what information is valuable to the consumer. Helpful content creation and distribution have become the foundation of successful marketing programs. Whether it’s blogs, white papers, podcasts, or videos, share with us how your brand tells a story and sparks engagement with intended audiences. See 2023 Winners
Best Digital Strategy & Execution
The Best Digital Strategy & Execution award recognizes excellence in crafting and implementing digital marketing campaigns, both paid and unpaid, that drive outstanding results. Showcase your innovative and effective use of digital channels, data-driven insights, technical know-how, and creative tactics to achieve marketing objectives and engage target audiences. See 2023 Winners
Best Customer Experience (CX) and/or Sales Enablement Execution
The Best CX and/or Sales Enablement award celebrates the seamless implementation of a brilliant customer experience and sales enablement processes. Everyone wins when marketing and sales work together, but that journey can have organizational, technological, or philosophical hurdles. Share with us your organization’s sales enablement and CX journey, including goals, results, and creative solutions. See 2023 Winners
Best “Scrappy” Marketing Campaign
The Best “Scrappy” Marketing Campaign award praises those who did a lot with a little. Are you a non-profit operating your marketing initiatives on a shoestring budget? New manager in a large organization trying to build a business case for something new and fighting for every budget dollar? Start up with lean funds to promote your new business? Tell us what you had to work with, how you tackled the creative challenge of getting the most bang for your buck, and how far it went in the end. See 2023 Winners
Best Non- Marketing Marketing Campaign
The Best “Non-Marketing” Marketing Program award celebrates marketers who wear many hats, and step out of some disciplines and into different ones like internal communications, employee relations or recruitment, or community involvement. Share your best “non-marketing” marketing and how it drove value for the organization. See 2023 Winners
Legends, Rising Stars, and Pinnacle Moments
Cincinnati Marketing Legends (CML)
Being named a Cincinnati Marketing Legend is a prestigious title, like a “lifetime achievement” award; it is not time-bound. Who has made a lasting impact and brought acclaim to the city or the profession of marketing? Learn more and see past recipients.
Cincinnati Marketing Rising Stars (CMRS)
The Cincinnati Marketing Rising Stars Award is like a high-five for excellent young marketing professionals under 35. It’s all about celebrating their cool marketing skills, killer campaigns, and impact on the industry. If you know of a marketer on the rise, this award is for them! See past recipients.
Pinnacle Moments in Cincinnati Marketing
The Pinnacle Moments in Cincinnati Marketing are the ones that stand out above and beyond a campaign or strategy. They take on a life of their own, like those we’ve recognized in the past:
- The social media superstars at the Cincinnati Bengals
- The sensational Fritz and Fiona at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens
- The rapid-fire launch and crowd-sourced growth of the Hearty platform
- The phenomenon that is BLINK
- The spectacular launch and rise of FC Cincinnati
We don’t have an entry form for the Moments that Mattered and the 2023 Pinnacle Moment, but we want to hear from you with your thoughts on what they are! Contact pinnacle@amacincinnati.org and/or tag AMA Cincinnati on social media to shout out your favorites from the past year.
How to Prepare & Submit
Prepare Your Submission
For all categories except the “Cincinnati Marketing Legends* and “Cincinnati Rising Stars” submissions must be accompanied by a summary describing the below points. Please keep the summary concise!
- 2-3 Sentence Summary or “Elevator Pitch” of Nomination
- 500 Words or Less for Each Section Below:
- Opportunity / Problem: Provide a brief situation analysis of the opportunity or problem your marketing work addressed.
- Objectives: What were you trying to achieve? Who were your target audiences? What did success look like? Don’t forget KPIs and SMART Goals!
- Planning & Execution: How did you make it happen?
- Results: Did you achieve your goals and objectives? Did your initial vision of success come to fruition? Don’t forget KPIs and SMART Goals!
Supporting Materials
We highly recommend including relevant supporting materials to accompany the summary. As we see submissions come in, judges may recommend adding special categories to recognize excellence in individual campaign components, so show us what you’ve got! These supporting materials can be any of the following:
- Final creative proofs or examples
- Multimedia: Photos, videos, audio files, etc.
- Printed collateral (saved as a PDF)
- Social media posts and/or metrics
- Measurement documents
- Testimonials or letters of recognition
- Relevant website links for reference
- Or… surprise us!
How to Submit
Easy peasy. Just click into AwardStage using the link below. Create an account, enter your submissions with supporting documents, pay, and submit. Contact pinnacle@amacincinnati.org with any questions or issues.
General Rules & Information
Eligibility
The Pinnacle Awards are open to all marketing professionals in the Greater Cincinnati area. Those who submit for an award must submit original work or work they directly supervised. The work submitted must have been created/executed from July 1, 2023, up until December 31, 2024.
It is required to pay submission fees at the time of submitting materials. Work submitted without payment will not be judged and therefore will not be eligible for an award.
Submission Requirements
Category Entries: A summary and payment are required; supporting materials are highly recommended. See the below section, “How to Submit,” for instructions.
Cincinnati Marketing Legends and Rising Stars: These only need basic information on you and your nominee. There is no fee for these. Although supporting materials are not required, we highly encourage a thoughtful pitch for why this individual has earned the distinction, in your opinion.
Judging
Pinnacle submissions will be judged by an American Marketing Association chapter outside of the Cincinnati region. Finalists will be notified in advance of the Awards Ceremony, and ALL finalists are winners! We will announce 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners at the Awards Ceremony.
Fees & Payment
- Standard Submission Fee – $90 per nomination
- Member Rate – $70 per nomination
- Non-Profit Fee – $50 per nomination
- Collegiate/Student Fee – $30 per nomination
- Cincinnati Marketing Legends and Rising Stars Nomination Fee – $0
Deadlines
Entries Due By March 19th- Don’t Miss Your Chance to Shine!
Questions, or interested in volunteering?
Contact Pinnacle@AMACincinnati.org or Kathy@AMACincinnati.org.
