Let’s look at the 10 finalists in the upcoming INMA Global Media Awards across five regional/local and five national/international brands.

These entries document what the best publisher-client advertising partnerships look like in practice and show a consistent pattern that results are highest when the editorial environment builds a natural bridge to the advertising opportunities.

Regional and local brands

• Story Premium — The Bodylight Campaign as Proof of Effective Client Advertising (Russmedia, Austria) is a branded content and native advertising solution for a small, owner-operated health studio with an explanation-intensive service and no appetite for promotional language. The campaign was built around a real customer transformation story embedded within an editorial environment on VOL.AT. Compared to a standard PR article on the same platform, it delivered 24x more readers, a 32x higher click-through rate, and 17x longer average dwell time. A top-performing teaser variant achieved a 62x higher CTR than a typical PR teaser. Within days of publication, the client’s appointment calendar was fully booked, a great proof of concept for Russmedia’s Story Premium product as a scalable, replicable format.

• Trends Saj Parbon (ABP, India) is a Durga Pujo fashion campaign built around the concept of Five Days, Five Looks — a participatory celebration of the most significant festive season in Bengal. The campaign launched at a rock concert with a live fashion ramp walk, then expanded through YouTuber-led video content, activations across 600 neighbourhoods and 22 districts, a dedicated microsite for participant submissions, celebrity and interactive videos. Cumulative organic reach across the campaign: +41M views. The entry shows what it looks like when a publisher builds an advertiser’s campaign around a cultural moment rather than just the advertiser’s product.
• Porto Alegre Marathon (GZH/Grupo RBS, Brazil) is a multiplatform campaign built around the 40th anniversary of the Porto Alegre Marathon and the simultaneous launch of Olympikus’ most advanced running shoe, the Corre 4. GZH journalists who are also runners documented the campaign, including a journalist training to become the official “Olympikus athlete” on race day and running the full course in real time. Coverage spanned the GZH Web site and app, social, the Rádio Gaúcha broadcast, YouTube livestream, and the “Hoje nos Esportes” programme broadcast live from the event expo. Total campaign impact: 18 million, and one week before marathon day, the Corre 4 sold out across all physical stores and the brand’s Web site.

• TAB NZ | Owning the Moment with NZME and The ACC (NZME, New Zealand) is a contextual betting advertising campaign built around the full sporting journey: pre-game, in-game, and post-game. TAB odds were dynamically embedded into NZ Herald sports articles ahead of matches; AI-powered odds refreshed in near-real time during live events; and post-game conversation continued through the ACC's podcasts and a dedicated TAB Sportsbook podcast. Across 10 million impressions, overall CTR was 3.35x NZME’s standard benchmark. Cost per click and cost per engaged unique user were the lowest of all TAB’s digital channels, with 51k people driven to the client’s Web site. The TAB entry is notable both for the technical architecture (real-time API integration at scale, managing traffic surges during peak moments), and for the commercial proof it provides that contextual relevance outperforms volume.
• Welcome to Gotland: When Stories Become Bookings (NTM, Sweden) is a multi-advertiser native campaign built to position Gotland as Sweden’s most inspiring domestic travel destination. Rather than producing isolated branded articles for individual clients, NTM featured multiple local businesses within the same editorial-style article — each built around a strong travel theme and distributed across 11 mainland NTM titles. 30+ local Gotland advertisers participated. The campaign reached 57,450 readers and averaged 47 seconds dwell time per article, average CTR was 9.3%, and summer native advertising revenue grew 33%. Several advertisers who had not previously invested in native advertising continued the relationship after the campaign. The multi-advertiser format lets smaller businesses access national distribution at a viable budget while expanding NTM’s inventory without requiring individual campaigns for each.

 National and international brands

• Norwegian Championship in Recycling — When Competition Becomes Learning (Amedia, Norway) is a nationwide recycling knowledge quiz for Grønt Punkt Norge built around county-level competition and the insight that people aren’t unwilling to sort, just unsure where things go. The quiz tested knowledge, then delivered correct answers. Halfway through, interim county rankings were used to sharpen local headlines, triggering increased participation. In all, 69,403 users started the quiz for a 50.6% completion rate, with active reading time measured at up to 72 seconds (benchmark: 30-40 seconds). RAM brand impact results scored above benchmark on all key parameters including usefulness, originality, intent to seek more information, and recommendation. The entry is a clean example of a public-interest campaign where gamification and editorial depth replaced moralizing, and engagement metrics reflect the difference.

• Slurrp for USHA (HT Media Labs, India) is a campaign for kitchen appliance brand USHA delivered through HT Media’s Slurrp food platform, targeting Millennial and older Gen Z home chefs. The objective was to reposition USHA as a modern, culturally rooted kitchen brand beyond its traditional sewing machine associations. Against a target of 3.2 million views, the campaign delivered 12.3 million+ views for a 300% overdelivery on reach. Engagement rate was 3.2% driving 600k+ total engagements, while USHA’s Instagram follower count grew 113% between November 2024 and June 2025.
• The Irish Times and Ireland’s Greenest Places: Balancing Purpose and Commercial Partnership (Irish Times Group, Ireland) is a community-led sustainability initiative that invited readers to nominate towns and communities leading environmental action in Ireland, with Electric Ireland as the commercial partner. The Irish Times Content Studio translated editorial inspiration into product-led branded content, driving both audience engagement and measurable commercial outcomes. Visits to Electric Ireland’s Net Zero Hub increased by 900% during the campaign period, Solar PV sales leads grew by 83%, and EV charger leads increased by 15%. Brand tracking showed a 12% increase in trust and a 6% increase in product awareness. Community nominations exceeded expectations and a live awards event at ESB’s headquarters brought finalists and communities together in person. The entry demonstrates how a journalism-led editorial initiative can function as both a reader engagement platform and an advertising vehicle without compromising on any front.
• SG60 Past, Present, Future (SPH Content Lab, Singapore) is a yearlong branded content system built around Singapore’s 60th year of independence. Rather than enabling advertisers to produce isolated SG60 campaigns, SPH Media created a structured editorial framework (Past, Present, Future) and enabled one client per month to own a specific theme delivered across The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, Berita Harian, and Tamil Murasu in multiple formats and languages. An independent YouGov brand impact study found three in four respondents viewed participating partners more positively after consuming the content, rising to four in five among Gen Z respondents. Nearly nine in 10 connected with the campaign messages, with 84% reporting emotional connection and 94% in the peak wave. Total reach: 2.9 million individuals, equivalent to 80% of Singapore residents aged 15 and above.

• KlimaTicket — One for All (Der Standard, Austria) is a full-page Web site takeover (or “mutation”) format for Austria’s national public transport ticket, granting access to almost all Austrian public transport systems. The creative approach integrated the campaign entirely into Der Standard’s editorial environment, using mouseover interactions that mirrored the product’s promise: one system, instantly accessible. The campaign delivered 902,063 ad impressions, 13,032 clicks, and a 1.44% CTR, significantly above typical digital display benchmarks. The entry stands out in the shortlist for the format choice: a full Web site mutation is a significant editorial commitment, and the results demonstrate what happens when the ad format reflects the product proposition.

Implications from the Best Client Advertising Campaign finalists

Publisher advertising campaigns drive outcomes: Russmedia booked Bodylight’s calendar within days of publication. Olympikus sold out the Corre 4 across all physical stores and online a week before marathon day. The Irish Times drove a 900% increase in visits to Electric Ireland’s Net Zero Hub and an 83% lift in solar PV leads.

They are the kind of results that historically drive advertiser spend to Meta and Google, and they came from publisher-led campaigns built around editorial context.

Multiple nominees built systems that multiple advertisers could buy into, widening access and growing revenue: SPH’s SG60 Past, Present, Future is a year-long editorial framework where one client per month owned a defined theme. NTM’s Welcome to Gotland ran 30+ Gotland businesses through a shared native editorial environment, distributing across 11 mainland titles, giving smaller advertisers national exposure at a budget that would never support individual campaigns. ABP’s Trends Saj Parbon built a community participation platform around Durga Pujo;s “Five Days, Five Looks” concept.

The repeatable editorial framework creates the value, and advertisers participate in it.

Format innovation is delivering real performance differentials: The TAB/NZME entry embedded dynamically refreshing live betting odds directly into sports articles. Der Standard ran a full Web site mutation/takeover for KlimaTicket, integrating the campaign entirely into the editorial environment. Russmedia A/B tested 10 teaser variants at launch for the Bodylight campaign, optimising in real time, producing a top-performing variant.

In each case, format integration and real-time optimisation delivered measurable performance advantages.

Breadth of coverage creates a wider set of advertising opportunities: SPH’s SG60 framework reached 2.9 million individuals, giving advertisers a coherent presence across language communities and age groups that no single-platform buy could replicate. GZH bundled the Olympikus marathon campaign across Web site and app, Rádio Gaúcha, YouTube, social media, and a live TV sports broadcast, creating distribution breadth that a brand could not assemble independently. NTM’s Welcome to Gotland gave Gotland SMEs distribution across titles, reaching travel-intent audiences in markets they had never before been able to reach.

The Irish Times entry worked because Electric Ireland could reach readers in an environment where sustainability was editorially authoritative, embedded in a national conversation The Irish Times was actively convening. This is less about avoiding adjacency to hard news and more about choosing editorial contexts where the brand's message is genuinely relevant to the audience.

In each case, the commercial value came from the publisher’s editorial reach and authority across contexts.

Cultural moments, influencers, and off-platform social help distinctive campaigns build scale: ABP’s Trends Saj Parbon wove a fashion brand into the Durga Pujo cultural moment across Bengal through a YouTuber-led content series, community on-ground activations, and organic views. GZH’s Porto Alegre Marathon campaign sent a journalist to train with Olympikus and race on marathon day in real time. SPH’s SG60 Past, Present, Future is a year-long framework in which multiple advertisers could participate, each owning a monthly theme.

These entries work because the publisher’s editorial team is part of the cultural moment, not just reporting on it from the outside, making the brand integration feel even more natural.

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