DMA Breakthrough Award 2023: Who won?

What. A. Day.

In the space of 24 hours, not only did our four finalist teams for 2023's DMA Breakthrough Award travel to London to pitch their final presentations to Barclays at their Canary Wharf office, they donned their glad rags for an evening of glitz and glamour at the DMA Awards to find our which team would win Gold and the £1,000 cash prize.

Barclays brief challenged students across the UK to develop a multi-channel marketing campaign to change Gen Z’s negative perceptions of credit cards and get them to start using Barclaycard in place of Buy Now Pay Later brands (BNPL) such as Karna and ClearPay, by refocusing on its benefits for younger customers that BNPLs don’t offer.

To reach the final, each team had already won their respective regional heat in Bristol, Edinburgh, Manchester and London, with 49 teams pitching across them.

After much debate, the judges crowned Gemma Rundell Skelding and James Gadsby from Edinburgh Napier University as 2023's Gold Winners with their campaign "Dodge the Debt Trap".

They presented an imaginative idea worthy of an experienced creative team with a well-defined strategy. Their insight around the need to demystify the terminology around credit cards was delivered through a clear yet fun and engaging creative concept, which would deliver cut through to the Gen Z audience.

The other teams placed as follows:

Silver Award (& £750): Lucy Henning and Lucy Gibbons from Leeds Arts University with ‘Learning your Limit’.

Bronze Award (& £500): Scott Clarke, Tim Hutchings and Freya Rowley from the University of Gloucestershire with ‘Barclaycard Enchanted’.

Highly Commended Award: Luis Ramsey and Dominic Ofoedu from Ravensbourne University with "Barclaycard goes Beyond".

“Barclays is passionate to support communities by enabling young people to develop the skills and confidence needed to succeed. As part of this ambition, we were proud to have partnered with the DMA Breakthrough Award 2023, and loved meeting the next generation of marketeers,” said Matt Conner at Barclays UK. “We were incredibly impressed with the calibre of the pitches and the range of ideas the teams brought to us – it was unbelievably difficult to decide between the four shortlisted campaigns.”

Kate Burnett, General Manager of DMA Talent, added: “We are incredibly grateful for the increasing level of interest and engagement that we receive each year in the Breakthrough Award, from budding marketing talent across the UK. It is a unique scheme which helps young people to learn about the industry while working on an impactful project for a leading international business. These types of initiatives are important for helping to ensure our industry is as inclusive as possible – we want everyone who is passionate about data-driven marketing to be able to showcase their skillsets and enthusiasm to learn.”

The DMA Breakthrough Award is one of the data and marketing industry’s leading awards celebrating the next generation of talent coming into the industry.

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