What’s new in 2025

The Golden Drum Festival continues to evolve, celebrating creativity that embodies authenticity and innovation. In 2025, we are highlighting special groups forming the All Juries Section. Works that honour local identity through the Genius Loci / Local Spirit group and those that redefine creative boundaries on a global scale in the Game Changer group will take center stage. Furthermore, creativity that positively influences the world, works created for profit and non-profit organisations, will shine in the Social Good group. Given the significance of these campaigns, they will once again be shortlisted by all five juries, with final awards determined by the five jury presidents alongside a representative from each jury.

This year marks the beginning of an exciting new partnership with thenetworkone, dedicated to supporting independent agencies that often face challenges in gaining global recognition. Through this collaboration, Grand Prix and Gold-winning works from independent agencies will automatically qualify for the Indie Awards, providing them with a platform to showcase their creative excellence on another international stage. Furthermore, our continued partnership with Little Black Book ensures that all Grand Prix winners gain direct entry into The Immortal Awards competition, further enhancing their visibility and industry recognition.

Novelties presented by the festival:

I. COMPETITION

While there are no significant structural changes to the groups and categories this year, updates in the entry process reflect the evolving industry landscape.​

AI DISCLAIMER

A new disclosure question has been introduced, requiring entrants to specify if and how AI technology was used in their submitted works. This initiative promotes transparency, allowing the jury to evaluate entries with full context and fairness.

CULTURAL CONTEXT QUESTION

To highlight the importance of local markets, the cultural context question - previously unique to the Genius Loci / Local Spirit group - will now be expanded to all groups and categories. This expansion ensures that the jury fully understands the relevance of each entry within its specific brand, market, and moment in time.

II. PARTNERSHIP WITH THENETWORKONE

Golden Drum is proud to strengthen its connection with the independent agency community through a new partnership with thenetworkone. This collaboration amplifies independent creative excellence on a global level, celebrating and supporting agencies that push creative boundaries and redefine the industry.

As part of this initiative, all independent agencies that win Golden Drum or Grand Prix awards at the festival will receive a complimentary entry into the Indie Awards 2026, allowing them to submit one piece of work into a category of their choice. Eligible works must be aired, launched, or released to the public for the first time between 30 September 2024 and 31 October 2025 and must not have previously been entered into any past Indie Awards.

The Indie Awards stand as the only large-scale international awards dedicated exclusively to independent agencies across all communication disciplines, judged solely by independent agencies. This provides a unique opportunity for agencies to showcase their creativity and benchmark their work against the best in the independent sector.

Focused on recognizing talent and rewarding achievement, the Indie Awards shine a spotlight on creative excellence - without bias, politics, or favouring agency size. It’s all about outstanding ideas, bold creativity, and independent spirit.

III. EXTENDING PARTNERSHIP WITH LITTLE BLACK BOOK & ADFORUM

The festival continues its partnership with Little Black Book. As part of this collaboration, all Grand Prix-winning works from Golden Drum will be entered directly and free of charge into competition of The Immortal Awards. The eligibility period for The Immortal Awards runs from 1 September 2024 to 31 August 2025. The company with the winning entry will receive a complimentary membership to Little Black Book, providing entry to the Immortal Awards as well as the opportunity to take advantage of the full Little Black Book offer.

Golden Drum is also featured in the AdForum Business Creative Report, a unique ranking of the world’s most-awarded campaigns by industry sector.

IV. INTERNATIONAL RANKINGS

The festival’s competition is recognized and included on the WARC Creative Rankings, The Drum World Creative Rankings and AdForum Rankings, further affirming its global impact and prestige.