Brewlander AI Irresponsibly wins first Effie Grand Prix

The Association of Advertising and Marketing Singapore has announced the winners of the Effie Singapore Awards 2026, with the programme awarding its first Grand Prix.

The top honour went to "Brewlander AI Irresponsibly", a campaign by BLKJ Havas for Brewlander. It was also the most awarded campaign of the night, delivering a 32% increase in spontaneous brand awareness and 15% year-on-year sales growth, according to organisers.

In total, 50 trophies were presented across 27 categories, including one Grand Prix, 10 Gold, 22 Silver and 17 Bronze trophies. BLKJ Havas emerged as the most decorated agency with 16 metals, while Income Insurance led all brands with 10.

The Grand Prix was a first for the Singapore programme in its 23-year history. The Brewlander campaign also won the David & Goliath Award, which recognises campaigns that deliver strong results despite relatively small budgets.

The work invited consumers to create their own cinematic beer advertisements using AI text prompts printed on billboards, coasters and social media posts. Organisers said it was designed to build awareness and engagement without compromising the brand's focus on product quality.

Rowena Bhagchandani, Co-Chair, Effie Singapore Awards 2026, and Chief Executive Officer, BLKJ Havas, said the standard of entries continued to rise.

"Singapore's marketing community has raised its standards year on year, and 2026's award entries were the strongest reflection of that yet. From campaigns that changed audience behaviours to work that redefined what a small budget can achieve, the range we saw across brands, agencies and categories speaks to an industry that has made effectiveness a cornerstone of how it operates," Bhagchandani said.

Other agencies with strong showings included Grab Creative Studio and TBWA\Singapore, with six metals each, and BBH Singapore, with five. Among the Gold winners, Income Insurance's "Child Secure Project", created by BBH Singapore, stood out.

The campaign won Gold in the Marketing Disruptors category and added medals in Social Good and Insurance. It focused on building what organisers described as Singapore's first insurer-supported counselling ecosystem for children of critically ill parents.

Dhiren Amin, Co-Chair, Effie Singapore Awards 2026, and Chief Customer Officer, Income Insurance Singapore, pointed to the Brewlander campaign as an example of what the awards seek to recognise.

"Great effectiveness comes from going beyond the surface. This year's Grand Prix campaign had a fraction of the budget of its competitors and outperformed all of them. That is the standard Effie exists to recognise," Amin said.

Learning festival

The awards were paired with the Effie Singapore Learning Festival, which brought together close to 650 industry professionals earlier in the day. Nine winning teams presented the thinking behind their campaigns, alongside keynote sessions from TBWA\Auckland, Leo India and Ogilvy Vietnam.

Several sessions focused on campaigns that addressed practical business or public policy problems. Grab Creative Studio and Grab discussed "Awwbandon Cart", a customer relationship marketing campaign that gave abandoned cart items emotional personalities and increased first-message conversion from 9% to 31.5%.

Leo Singapore and McDonald's presented "McGriddles GriddleCore A.M. Fest", which they said was rooted in ethnographic fieldwork rather than trend reports. Organisers said the campaign delivered a 10% increase in launch impact compared with the previous campaign and a 17% rise in average campaign sales.

Mediacorp and FairPrice Group detailed "The Untold Story of FairPrice CNY Freshness", a campaign aimed at changing perceptions rather than promoting a product feature. It translated supply chain information into consumer-facing messages, lifted purchase intent, and drove fresh pork sales by a double-digit percentage during the campaign period.

Public sector work also featured strongly. Ogilvy Singapore and the Singapore Police Force outlined "Breaking the Cognitive Glitch", which used a jingle and the ScamShield 1799 helpline in a bid to reverse an eight-year upward trend in scam cases.

TBWA\Singapore and the Health Promotion Board presented "Salt Buries True Flavours", which framed sodium reduction through heritage storytelling. Organisers said the campaign generated more than 22 million video views and encouraged more than two million Singaporeans to reduce their salt intake.

Other featured sessions came from The Secret Little Agency and Klook on "The Best You", and from VML Singapore and the Ministry of Home Affairs on "SGSecure Jolted Singaporeans into Action by Infiltrating their Feeds". The latter addressed what organisers described as a widening gap between public awareness of terror risks and willingness to act.

The combined awards and learning programme underscored the Effie network's emphasis on measurable marketing results and peer-to-peer sharing of campaign strategy. Singapore's first Grand Prix went to a campaign that, according to organisers, outperformed rivals with only a fraction of their budget.