Is Your Work Creating Meaningful Societal Change? It's Time to Enter it

Why enter the DMAs if your work creates meaningful societal change? Georgina Murray-Burton, Head of Strategy at House 337, explains why the DMAs are the stage to showcase your creativity, strategy, and results:

When our industry is at its best, we don’t just do marketing and communications. We influence minds. Shape behaviour. Frame conversations. We’re showing how creative power can do more than drive purchase, it can shift stigmas, challenge injustice, and save lives.

That’s why the DMA Awards’ "For Good" categories matter so much.

The winners in Inclusive Marketing, Innovation for Good, Sustainability and Thoughtful marketing celebrate campaigns that use strategy, data and creativity to create meaningful societal change, from changing government policy to giving vulnerable people a lifeline. They’re some of the smartest, most effective and most important campaigns in the industry.

Edelman research shows us that 53% of people think brands can do more to solve social problems than governments. Consumers expect brands to step up. It’s a challenge, and an invitation. Let’s show what we can do, what we’ve already done in fact. Share our examples of lived, measurable change created through strategic clarity, brilliant creativity and a desire to use data to prove our work has worked.

These campaigns remind us: creativity isn’t just for grabbing attention or driving sales. It’s how we solve real problems. Marketing, at its best, is a form of public service. It’s how we make systems more inclusive, behaviours more sustainable, experiences more thoughtful. And in a world where people are exhausted by dullness, mistrust, and complexity, creativity that’s brave, emotional and beautifully human is more needed than ever.

The For Good categories: Inclusive Marketing, Innovation for Good, Sustainability, and Thoughtful Marketing are where that need meets action. They’re the sharp edge of what our industry is capable of when we apply imagination to what matters.

Recent winners have shown us how literally burning outdated sunbed legislation prompted a parliamentary review. Inspired us with the use of haptic technology embedded in football shirts helping deaf fans physically feel the match, sparking a global movement to make sport more accessible.

Marriott used subtle guest-facing nudges and storytelling around their hotels to reduce food waste, making a real difference to sustainability without compromising the guest experience. And how giving men a simple word; “Maaate” to interrupt misogyny turned a campaign into a cultural device, delivering real social change (source) and earning the coveted DMA Awards Grand Prix.

And that’s the other thing about For Good work: it raises the bar. For our industry, for clients and for what creativity is expected to do.

So, take a moment to think if you could add your work to this important group. Maybe you helped people make better choices. Made something more inclusive. Nudged a habit or opened up access. It might be one audience segment, one postcode, one action. That still counts. If it improved lives, and you can prove it, you’ve already got a story worth telling.

So, measure it, enter it, be proud of it. Show the world what marketing and communications can really do…for good.

Enter The DMA Awards