I am chair of judges for the Brand Impact Awards – an annual awards scheme that celebrates the world’s best branding.
The awards are judged according to market sector, which gives bold, innovative work in traditionally conservative sectors the chance to shine.
View the 2023 winners on Creative Bloq
I launched the BIAs in 2014 following a major repositioning of the Computer Arts brand, and over the next decade I’ve helped grow the event into an unmissable fixture in the design industry calendar.
The BIAs’ rich heritage of past winners spans boutique studios such as Johnson Banks, NB Studio and Studio Sutherl&, right up to large networked agencies such as Superunion, Turner Duckworth and Wolff Olins.
I have assembled and chaired the judging panel every year, with co-chairs Lynda Relph-Knight (2014), Mark Bonner (2015), Bruce Duckworth (2016), Jim Sutherland (2017), Simon Elliott (2018) and Chris Moody (2019).
During the COVID-19 pandemic, judging in 2020 took place remotely. Over the course of a week, I chaired a total of eight video debates – over 20 hours of insightful discussion in total.
I built on this approach for 2021, chairing over 30 hours of debate with a diverse global panel that spanned San Francisco to Sydney, taking in New York, London, Paris and Cape Town.
To mark 10 years of the BIAs in 2023, I assembled our biggest-ever panel, packed with world-class expertise from the agencies and clients behind Best of Show-winning projects over the past decade, a constellation of previous Gold and Silver winners, plus other hand-picked global branding specialists.
To evolve the judging process further, every judge had three weeks to review and rate the entries independently – and then small specialist panels of 5-6 came together to debate the final results in their allocated categories.
“Had a delightful day judging the Brand Impact Awards. Nick is a charming, smart guy with a huge knowledge and respect of the industry. He loves what he does and sees. The debates were serious and good fun in equal measure.”
Greg Quinton – chief creative officer, Superunion
Nick Carson 