The $450 entry fee includes one category, each additional category is $95.
Experiential
1. Brand Events & Immersive Experiences
This category recognizes both live and online events, including shows/concerts, in-store customer experiences, planned and/or created by the public relations team.
2. Cultural Activations
This category recognizes experiences built around existing cultural events, including shows/concerts, celebrations, and more.
3. Digital Promo & Activation
This category recognizes any online/social media activity that leads to direct sales, prospecting, donations or other calls to action on online or social media platforms.
4. Sponsorships
This category recognizes both the planning and execution of sponsorship of sports and entertainment activities, as well as PR support that leverage that sponsorship.
Earned Media
These submissions should be anchored in a single piece of excellent earned coverage. The anchor media can be supported with additional pieces of coverage and/or syndication to show additional reach, scope and impact. Please include the anchor coverage or link to it in the submission. These categories exclude paid content.
5. General Market, Consumer and Lifestyle Media
This category recognizes exceptional coverage that is earned on digital or traditional media across general, consumer and lifestyle media. Excludes paid content.
6. Business/Trade Media
This category recognizes exceptional trade/business/B2B coverage that is earned on digital or traditional media. Excludes paid content.
7. Broadcast Media
This category recognizes exceptional broadcast coverage — online segments, tv talk shows, radio shows, podcasts, etc — earned on broadcast media.
8. Earned Endorsement from Influencers + Communities
This category recognizes earned digital, print or broadcast placements with influencers. Includes YouTube, podcasts, social media influencers, subject matter experts, as well as product reviews. Excludes paid content.
9. Co-Creation with Influencers and Creators
This category recognizes content co-created in collaboration with online influencers and creators.
10. Persuasive Stakeholder Content
This category recognizes content intended to persuade and/or change stakeholder attitudes and behavior, including speeches, opinion pieces, award entries, etc., including employee communications, financial communications, crisis/issues management or public affairs.
11. Content Creation for Media Sites (Earned)
This category recognizes bylines, videos, podcasts, infographics etc, in any news media (print, digital or broadcast), online community (blogs, YouTube, influencers) etc.
Paid and Owned Media
12. Paid Influencer Programs + Endorsements
This category recognizes paid placements, mentions or promotions of a product, brand or company on social media.
13. Branded Content Integration
This category recognizes the integration of brands into an entertainment vehicle (film, tv show, online etc) via product placement or promotions.
14. Corporate/Issues Advertising
This category recognizes paid advertising on either print, broadcast, or online channels, designed to protect or promote corporate reputation, or garner support for an issue.
15. Overall Use of Social Media & Platforms
This category recognizes brands that integrate outreach across social channels and platforms to build, reach and engage stakeholders.
16. Digital Publishing
This category recognizes the creation and promotion of owned channels including websites, magazines, newsrooms, podcasts, and other digital channels designed to increase engagement between an organization and its key stakeholders.
Social Media & Community Management
18. Overall Use of Social Media & Platforms
This category recognizes brands that integrate outreach across a variety of social channels and platforms to build, reach and engage stakeholders.
19. Social Video
This category recognizes the best use of social video on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram Live, Facebook video, TikTok for stakeholder engagement.
20. Influencer/Creator Marketing
This category recognizes campaigns that utilize social media influencers—paid and/or earned—to help organizations engage with, activate and influence their key stakeholders.
21. Innovative Use of Social Platform
This category recognizes breakthrough creative campaigns that maximize the strengths of established social platforms (including LinkedIn, Instagram, X/Twitter, Facebook and more) to build community, drive engagement and deliver measurable impact.
22. Innovative Use of Video and Streaming Platforms
This category recognizes outstanding storytelling on video-first platforms (YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, etc.) and on streaming platforms.
23. Innovative Use of Emerging & Community-Driven Platforms
This category recognizes innovative use of newer or niche platforms and communities (Reddit, Discord, Substack, etc) to build and engage with communities of stakeholders.
Innovative Tools and Tactics
25. Real-time Engagement: Culturejacking
The use or media—social, digital or traditional—to take advantage of a cultural moment to amplify corporate and/or brand messaging.
26. Real-time Engagement: Crisis and Issues
This category recognizes the use or media—social, digital or traditional—to respond in real-time to crises or to prevent/reduce threats to corporate or brand reputation.
27. Artificial Intelligence
This category recognizes the use of artificial intelligence in campaign planning, execution and measurement to create innovative content or deliver greater impact.
28. VR/AR and Immersive Technology
This category recognizes the use of innovative technology to expand the ways they can engage, communicate with and activate their stakeholders.
29. Innovative Content Creation
This category recognizes a range of creative content including podcasts, music collaborations, gamification, user-generated contests, custom illustration, photography, etc.
30. Meme
This category recognizes ideas, images, or videos that taps into a cultural event or moment to connect with the audience and spread virally.
31. Brand Identity and Design
This category recognizes the creation or reimagining of a brand’s visual and verbal identity — from logos and design systems to tone of voice — that strengthens reputation and differentiation.
Partnerships & Collaboration
32. Brand Collaboration
This category recognizes partnerships between brands in order to enhance credibility, amplify messaging, reach a broader or more diverse audience, increase creativity and otherwise improve stakeholder engagement.
33. Celebrity Collaboration
This category recognizes partnerships between organizations and individual celebrities based on the strategic appropriateness of the relationship and the mutual effort expended to create messaging that is credible and resonant with the specific audience.
34. Purpose and Impact Partnerships
This category recognizes mutually-beneficial partnerships between brands and NGOs, non-profits, charities, and causes.
Data and Analytics
35. Data-Driven Insight & Strategy
This category recognizes the broad role of data in campaign planning and strategy, from social listening to insight generation and message development to media channel planning.
36. Behavioral Science
This category recognizes the incorporation of social science—and particularly behavioral science—into campaign strategy.
37. Measurement and Post-Campaign Analysis
This category recognizes research, data, or analytics—including surveys, focus grouos, media analysis and more—designed to measure the impact of a campaign.
38. Original/Commissioned Research for PR
This category recognizes original or commissioned research conducted to provide valid and valuable content for public relations or other communications initiatives.
The Tech Stack Awards
These categories are designed to recognize the ever-expanding eco-system of products and services that are designed to help public relations professionals do their jobs more effectively. Entries should focus on new products, or products that have undergone major enhancement and improvements over the past 12 months in order to make them a more essential element of the PR professional’s tech stack.
39. Best New Third-Party Product/Service
This category recognizes the best new tool developed by third-party suppliers to the public relations industry, and made available to PR agencies and communications departments to enhance efficiency or deliver improved impact.
40. Most Improved Third-Party Product/Service
This category recognizes improvements to existing tools developed by third-party suppliers to the public relations industry, and made available to PR agencies and communications departments to enhance efficiency or deliver improved impact.
41. Best New PR Agency Product/Service
This category recognizes the best new offering (product or service) developed by a public relations agency enhance efficiency or deliver improved impact.
42. Best Artificial Intelligence Product/Service
This category recognizes the best new tool developed by either third-party suppliers to the public relations industry or an individual PR agency that uses artificial intelligence to enhance efficiency or deliver improved impact.
Campaign Awards
While the Innovation SABREs primarily recognize specific campaign elements or the use of specific channels and platforms in an over-arching campaign, there are a number of ways in which broad-based campaigns are innovative and even ground-breaking in ways that do not fit comfortably into categories used in the campaign-focused SABRE competitions.
43. Platform Creation
This category recognizes a single compelling insight or idea that created a platform for a major campaign or initiative that helped an organization strengthen its relationships with key stakeholders or achieve other critical strategic objectives.
44. Content Marketing Campaign
This category recognizes a campaign that employed a wide range of innovative content in several of the categories described above in order to create maximum and sustained impact over the duration of the campaign.
45. Storytelling
This category recognizes a campaign that used storytelling techniques to create a compelling brand or company narrative in order to engage, influence, activate or build relationships with stakeholder groups.
46. Data-Driven Campaign
This category recognizes the innovative and effective use of data throughout all stages of a campaign.
47. Boldest Campaign
This category recognizes a campaign that took major risks in order to maximize impact and effectiveness.
48. Combating Disinformation
This category recognizes a campaign that defuses or otherwise negates misinformation or disinformation about the client organization.
49. Corporate Values in Action
This category includes both the creation, launch, refinement or relaunch of an organization’s values, or a campaign that is rooted in and exemplifies those values.
50. Start-Up/Emerging Market Campaign
This category is designed to recognize work with start-ups and early-stage companies as well as those in emerging and disruptive industry sectors, and includes initiatives designed to secure financing, attract employees, and introduce the company to customers.
51. Pro-Bono Campaign
This category recognizes a campaign conducted as part of an agency’s pro-bono work and commitment to public service.
Agency Awards
These categories are designed to recognized agencies that have demonstrated a commitment to various important aspects of creativity and innovation.
52. Agency of the Future
This category recognizes an agency that is shifting expectations of what a public relations agency and be or do. This can include disruptive approaches to managing and marketing the agency; the development of new techniques and tools; the incorporation of data and analytics; activities that enhance creativity and pioneer new forms of content; a radical commitment to ethics, values and purpose; and a commitment to progressive workplace practices.
53. Data-Driven Agency of the Year
This category recognizes an agency that has embedded data and analytics in every aspect of its work, from campaign planning to campaign evaluation.
54. Social Impact Agency of the Year
This category recognizes a public relations agency that is driven by delivering social impact in both its internal practices and policies and practices and its work for clients.
55. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Initiative
This category recognizes agencies that are addressing the industry's diversity, equity and inclusion challenges with innovative and effective initiatives.
56. Agency Thought Leadership
This category recognizes groundbreaking research, insightful analysis or other fresh thinking delivered by agencies to position themselves as experts or challenge existing thinking on specific issues.
Individual Awards
These awards are designed to recognize individuals, either agency professionals or members of in-house communications teams, who are driving change and innovation within their organization or for their clients.
57. Creative Leader of the Year
This category recognizes creative directors (in-house and agency) and others who have made a significant contribution to the creative output of their organizations or agencies.
58. Data Professional of the Year
This category recognizes professionals (in-house and agency) who have had a significant impact on the way their organization or agency uses data in campaign planning, execution and/or evaluation.
59. DE&I Professional of the Year
This category recognizes professionals (in-house and agency) who have had a significant impact on the way their department or agency approaches diversity, equity and inclusion and has had a significant impact on DE&I performance.
60. Next-Gen Leader
This category recognizes an early- to mid-career professional (less than eight years of full-time experience) who is already shaping the future of PR through bold thinking, inventive execution and measurable impact on an agency/PR department and its work.
61. Innovator of the Year: Agency
This category recognizes professionals on the agency side who empower and enable reputation and communication excellence and innovation for their clients.
And finally…
We know the public relations industry is evolving on a daily basis, and we are not so arrogant that we believe we can keep up with all the new tools, techniques, channels, and critical issues that change brings. So we have added this category so that you can enter work so innovative it doesn’t fit any of our pre-set notions.
63. And Now For Something Completely Different
This category recognizes an idea, innovation or campaign so new that it does not fit into any of the categories above.