The FMBE Awards 2025, presented at Troxy London, 29th January 2026 were the 21st anniversary of the event. FMBE were the first awards globally to recognise the variety of skills and achievements for work broadly called Field Marketing and the second awards globally recognising Brand Experience marketing in multiple categories (America’s Ex Awards started in 2003, a year before FMBE).
At the awards we celebrated the talent and the high achievers active in the industry today. We handed out reverse birthday presents as the 16 most successful agencies in FMBE’ s past were surprised with blue wall plaques at their tables during dinner to celebrate their pioneering achievements
In alphabetical order
ABM Experience Solutions
“Pioneering agency for Retail and Brand Experiences”
With 2008’s ‘Contentainment’, ABM, then trading as Blackjack Promotions made retail experience a part of the shopper strategy at World Duty Free (now part of Avolta).
It was the start of a programme that prioritised entertainment and engagement over sampling and trial at prestige locations, opening up at Heathrow T5.
It was a strategy that has proved durable and versatile. It has proved to be a powerful success story for the retailer and the brands that it houses with FMBE Award wins coming to the team for both the strategy alongside the retailer and individual brand promotions from 2009 to present day.
The strategy has embraced technology and changes in opportunity but in one sense has remained consistent – excellent staff.
The agency has had wins for work in experiential outside the Contentainment programme too, showing immersive events away from retail are also part of its strong skillset.
Many brands have learnt the value of Brand Experience through Contentainment and progressed to greater levels of investment in our industry.
Blue Square
“The most versatile and complete FMBE agency with award winning successes across the full range of live brand experiences.”
When FMBE started out Brand Experience was considered by some to be a discipline within Field Marketing. Agencies doing sampling and roadshows were listed in an annual turnover feature in the now defunct publication Marketing called the Field Marketing League Tables.
We never bought into that and for years our categories showed little overlap. Only very occasionally did an agency best known for FM pop up in BE or vice versa.
But consumer electronics experts Blue Square broke that mould, becoming the first agency to be shortlisted for Agency of the Year in FM and BE.
They’ve won with sales campaigns, field teams, roadshows and immersive events. They’ve even won with immersive events for sales teams. (Samsung with Blue Square roadshow 2023 winner pictured)
Ever inventive Blue Square pushes at the award category boundaries doing so ahead of everyone else when combatting the COVID crisis using virtual ambassadors, shared online gaming and studio broadcasts.
As a further footnote, it was appropriate that Brand Partnership Group, the broader business designed to showcase agencies acquired or developed to sit alongside Blue Square, now includes staff provider Kru Live, an agency that used FMBE 2006 to launch itself and was later the first staff provider to win gold for a global staffing campaign – supplying Keds on tour with Taylor Swift ‘Red’ in 2014.
The Circle Agency
“Three Agency of the Year Awards setting the gold standard for clear event evaluation.”
Through the years we’ve seen the lot from Circle, immersive gaming environments, mass sleep ins, complex football tournaments, festival stage sponsorships, barge sampling, breakfast boogie and in store footprint tracking… They share something very special in common, clear evaluation that shows why you would put the effort in in the first place.
The agency grew to prominence with EA Games in the first decade of FMBE and added PlayStation including the impressive School’s Cup along the way.
Circle’s 3 gold Agency of the Year wins, in 2011, 2014 and 2020 were all impressive but at FMBE we especially appreciated 2020 when Circle won the award easily. How? In that year Circle’s imagination and energy came to the fore, especially alongside client Costa. It was a year when global campaigns couldn’t be rolled out – every country had different COVID restrictions at different times. Costa trusted Circle to bring delight direct to the people and nobody did it better. The long lasting goodwill they the experiential team brought to Costa was exceptional.
CPM
“Strategic client successes showing industry innovation and leadership, setting gold standards that span all of our 21 years.”
CPM was the most successful agency at the first FMBE Awards in 2005 including an innovative win with Asda. Innovation+Asda+CPM proved a winning combination again in 2024.
CPM enjoys some of the longest standing strategic relationships in FM, including 40 years with Mars Wrigley and another of similar longevity with Diageo.
CPM’s recent wins have seen golds for data and strategic innovation, whilst people and training are also core to its ongoing investment in delivering for clients.
Field Sales Solutions
“Multiple Agency of the Year wins and brand successes including the all-time highest scoring field marketing campaign.”
Since the start of FMBE Awards, Field Sales Solutions has been on a steady growth curve, finally putting it all together for the first of three Agency of the Year successes in 2017, by which time both P&G and Ferrero were a part of their process. That those two brand owners are still passionately members of team Field Sales Solutions speaks volumes for the agency which is now part of the Marvesting Group.
Field Sales Solutions have enjoyed success in nearly every Field Marketing category at the Awards with 2022’s launch of Lenor Outdoorable with P&G being the standout. It is the highest scoring FM campaign to date at FMBE with judges’ loving the comprehensive launch of what was then the Product of the Year, with the field team being given the credit for the product’s success. It was the perfect case study for showing any FMCG brand why Field Marketing should receive primary resource investment.
Fizz Experience
“Costco and Fizz Experience: The Sampling sector’s winning relationship that delivers a platform for multiple brands to grow.”
Celebrating the work that Fizz does illustrates the difference between FMBE and other brand experience awards as we celebrate work across a broad spectrum. Sampling in wholesale buildings is low on glamour and high on practicality. Thanks to Fizz we also know it to be high on accountable effectiveness.
We credited Costco as well as Fizz with this plaque as every one of their awards has been done at or with Costco. Sometimes they have won with Costco alone, with client relationships and operational successes – opening the Reykjavik store together being a case in point.
But they have also won with brands – often helping to prove the value of sampling and in turn helping that brand’s marketers to justify future experiential or field budget.
Everyone in the FMBE space has reason to love Fizz’s careful and clearly justified campaigns that consistently show – and deliver – ROI.
Gekko Group
“Pioneering and Championing Consumer Electronics Campaigns.”
A year one FMBE entrant and winner in 2005, Gekko has a reputation for brand ambassadors who know how to upsell, helping shoppers find the right features and benefits for their needs.
The agency also enjoyed sustained success when handling the Digital UK handover as analogue TV was phased out.
Gekko is the only consumer electronics specialist to win Agency of the Year which it did in 2008, they year they worked with Apple to create Store in Store retail. Apple was very much the breakthrough brand at that time, with iPods all the rage and the first iPhone out for a year.
If you meet and discuss a product with a Gekko ambassador in store you can be assured of an engaging and informed conversation.
Logobrand
“Leading data and insight innovation for both tactical and strategic grocery campaigns including Agency of the Year titles.”
Logobrand is an agency that consistently shouts above its weight with tactical and data driven campaigns being its hallmarked territory for success.
The agency has produced some of FMBE’s greatest innovation breakthroughs.
Of agencies operating in the grocery multiple FMCG sector, Logobrand is the smallest to have made it to Agency of the Year, a feat they have managed twice – in 2015 and 2020.
Despite the tactical reputation, Logobrand enjoys a progressive and ongoing relationship with clients including JDE Peet’s and Carlsberg Britvic. Seeing either of these two brands paired with Logobrand on the FMBE shortlist must be daunting for others shortlisted in that category as they have a very high shortlist to win ratio.
N2O
“Multiple Agency of the Year Awards and wins for connecting brands people across the range of brand experiences.”
N2O has been a snowball agency, around but barely featuring in our early years and only really making a regular impact after 2013, the year they won the sampling and experiential contract at Tesco.
From that pivotal year N2O has impacted almost every FMBE category with only the Covid years temporarily putting the brakes on exponential growth.
In recent years N2O has taken Tesco to unprecedented new levels as an experiential brand whilst also impressing our judges with work for Superdrug (pictured – from Superdrung Presents), a portfolio of health and beauty brands, and a broad range of Coca Cola’s brands all whilst helping to bring new brands into the experiential sector – such as 2024 Roadshow winner P&O Cruises.
N2O’s three Agency of the Year wins have come in 2018, 2022 and 2024. That most recent win coincided with the agency becoming part of the France originated Globe Groupe.
PrettyGreen
“Formidable champion of evaluated events that drive the brand conversation”
PrettyGreen – these days alongside experiential unit The Producers – are the lead FMBE agency in history for linking real live conversations to genuine amplification through PR and social media.
In FMBE terms the agency came of age with Cadbury’s several years of work ahead of and at London 2012 with a comprehensive nationwide game that pitted Spots Vs Stripes.
PrettyGreen has had FMBE success with clients including Pandora, John Lewis and Not on The High Street but it has most frequently hit our gold standard with Lego with creative, immersive, environmentally sensitive, amplified and evaluated event-led campaigns.
During the COVID Christmas The Producers and Lego leant on everything they knew to make Lego’s Christmas event light up London at a time when almost no other events cold cope with the stop start Government rules. It was a popular event with the public – so much so that it encouraged others to go ahead – creating vital revenue streams in the event industry.
It was the only event shortlisted in Immersive events for the 2021 awards – presented at Oxford Town Hall in January 2022 – and it underpinned a very well deserved Agency of the Year win that also displayed the agencies skilled digital team.
Powerforce
“Twice Agency of the Year winner that has repeatedly won team, brand ambassador and instore marketing recognition.”
Powerforce is the sister agency to REL Field Marketing (now Smollan) and enjoys the same Smollan Group benefits.
The two agencies are healthy rivals and each have a distinct management style.
At Powerforce there is a very strong emphasis on people power and the harnessing of passion.
The team entries exude passion, champion team satisfaction data and deliver outstanding relationships with stores. They are multiple gold winners in Instore, Team and Brand Ambassador categories and won a challenging live trial to take Agency of the Year in 2024, two years after their first AoY success.
PRL
“Outstanding ability to establish product success at retail epitomised by multiple successes with new product launches.”
Irish agency PRL’s business profile shows a large logistics and services company with a growing field marketing and sales division.
As such it gets to operate in the field for core consumer brands. Campaigns that have shown off PRL’s prowess include the launches for Hophouse13, Blucozade and 2022 winner Velo (pictured).
The product launch category is not exclusive though – the agency has seen award wins in sales, tactical, logistics and display merchandising.
PRL has regularly proved that reaching brand connections into Ireland’s most rural communities can be delivered efficiently and effectively for brand groups including Pladis and Irish Distillers.
RPM
“Agency of the Year winner and pioneer agency for global and integrated brand experiences.”
A year one FMBE winner with Strongbow and Lipton’s, RPM won agency of the year in 2007.
RPM was always a pioneer; Strongbow was a client of longstanding when it won with its festival presence in 2005. In was also the year RPM was signed up to work with Diageo. In the years to follow RPM made every headline going with Diageo’s Smirnoff, including 2010’s pan-European seminal Nightlife Exchange project.
We didn’t see every stage of that at FMBE, but we did award a special creative gold to the ground – well sea breaking – sail in cinema at Cowes Week 2011 for Diageo’s Talisker.
Much more recently RPM struck FMBE gold in 2024 with Guiness for a multinational African activation in bars and fanzones (pictured).
RPM’s pioneering work is also seen with client Sky. For years we were able to look to Skyride as the brand event we considered to have had the biggest cultural impact on the UK (2009-2016) with a core target of 1 million new cyclists reached in 2012.
Smollan
“The most garlanded agency in FMBE history, annually showing the industry lead in people care and team management.” (pictured at 2023 reception, Ascot Racecourse)
Smollan (previously trading as REL Field Marketing) was a year one winner with Sainsbury’s.
The agency quickly understood that our client-led approach and tailored categories were good for healthy best practice competition. The agency is never shy of backing up a core claim with key data shared as evidence.
By empowering their business unit directors and seeking feedback the agency stole a march on other agencies in our middle years, using FMBE Team and Agency of the Year successes to create a virtuous circle of improvement. There were 6 Agency of the Year wins in the first 21 years of FMBE. They were the first agency to really focus Team award entries around staff and team satisfaction data, something they rubber stamped by joining the Great Place to Work scheme in 2015.
Field Sales Teams such as Weetabix and Mondelez have been so consistent with Weetabix in particular enjoying wins across a wide remit – sales, teams, product launches and even roadshows. Seamless client relationships mean that through the history of the awards we have seen brand ambassador winners regularly promoted into client HQs.
Smollan counts every gold, silver, bronze and shortlisted achievement with pride.
TRO
“Multiple Agency of the Year Awards and creators of 3 of the all-time greatest brand events.”
A year one (2005) double winner with Mini and British School of Motoring, TRO subsequently notched up 3 Agency of the Year wins, most recently in 2023 marking the first year of MD Andrew Orr’s tenure.
Andrew had been promoted through the ranks and TRO’s success is underpinned by the consistency of its senior leader team and internal development of talent.
It is also one of the most supportive agencies for investing in rising stars and university courses.
Consistency is something of a watchword, as we have seen TRO make annual strides with clients including BMW Group as 20 years headlining the PGA championship at Wentworth and regularly present at Goodwood’s automotive festivals where TRO’s work is always across multiple automotive brands.
So far, so dependable, but this team can also pull out the creative stops and has three of the very best FMBE immersive events to its name.
With Lucozade Sport they earned top marks from our judges for 2014’s Conditions Zone as five-a-side footballers played indoors to Brazilian World Cup conditions alongside sporting royalty and hydration scientists.
With Unite Students they won Campaign of the Year for a donut makery that had a huge ROI for the student accommodation specialists (pictured).
Finally, there is the astonishing Berlin Electrified that took place as Formula E raced there with no audience during the pandemic – and TRO kept all the many BMW AG stakeholders and fans connected, including hosting a drive in screening. It was all done in 8 weeks after the event was scrapped and moved from London.
Wasserman
“The leading BE Agency of the Year winner and three of the all-time most ground-breaking campaigns.”
Wasserman, with an asterisk at least, has won Brand Experience Agency of the Year four times, 2006, 2012, 2015, 2017. The asterisk? Well, the team weren’t known as Wasserman the first two times but as Ignition and then Ignite. But that was the team Wasserman bought, along with that team’s ability to deliver famous campaigns that FMBE had championed.
There were so many good campaigns from the team in that time many leveraging Vodafone’s sponsorship of sport and music. A real game changer saw 2011’s Mclaren Mercedes MP4 F1 car launched in Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz as competition winning members of the public brought the new F1 car in fragments across the city to the shopping centre. Mechanics accompanied by Lewis Hamilton and Jensen Button assembled the car in front of an audience, the drivers adding the steering wheel and headrest themselves.
Another memorable campaign saw the team, then as Ignite, in 2024, create Energy of the Nation for EDF Energy, each day using social media sentiment to create an energy efficient light show on the EDF Energy sponsored London Eye. Whilst previous Eye sponsor BA might lay claim to using the London landmark as a centrepiece – leading to the Eye’s current adoption for the big New Year fireworks, lights and projection show, marrying this still novel lighting process to Twitter hashtag was an inspired extension. They did this at a time when London was in the spotlight for event and brand event delivery. For France-owned EDF, being a Tier 1 sponsor at the heart of a British Olympics, becoming a part of the national conversation was a coup.
Finally, with Bombay Sapphire, 2016-17, Wasserman built an incredible actor and tech driven experience homed in a stationary train, the Laverstock Express. The train took diners inside it on a Grand Journey, evoking the heritage, history and locations famous to this botanical spirit. For a stationary carriage the event travelled far as it was taken on a pan-European tour. It was stunning piece of immersive theatre with legacy appeal (pictured)
SpaceandPeople – Brand Engagement Award
When FMBE Awards first started out it was SpaceandPeople’s Matthew Bending who helped define what Brand Experience delivered as a channel. We listened. He was right. The business, nowadays the largest facilitator of brand experience venues, had started out in 2000 and had just floated on the stock market in 2004.
SpaceandPeople were ever present at the awards and became a sponsor in 2012, rising to lead sponsor in 2022. In that time and to present day it has been a part of the event team for delivering more brand experiences than any other business in our industry.
FMBE acknowledged this at its 21st awards ceremony – the fact that the SpaceandPeople has been engaged as a core supplier on more award winning campaigns than anyone else in the room.
SpaceandPeople has developed brand engagement experience and expertise that few can match. It is always supportive of all FMBE campaigns with creative and/or effective ambitions.
It was this expertise and commitment to standards that we acknowledged in making the special presentation of an award for Brand Engagement at the awards ceremony.