Three in-house teams from Diageo, Vodafone and Electrical Safety First were crowned winners at this week’s PRWeek UK Awards 2025.
The awards, which took place on Wednesday evening at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House hotel in London’s Park Lane, celebrated the very best in PR, recognising and rewarding the top campaigns, consultancies and teams of the past year.
Internal Communications and Employee Engagement: Diageo
Diageo (picture above with In.Comms editor Claire Warren and event host comedian Ellie Taylor) took home the trophy for its ‘Festival of Brand Building’ activation. The beverage company launched a festival for its more than 30,000 global employees to strengthen staff advocacy and capability.
Preceded by a month-long campaign featuring internal quizzes, competitions, and hashtags to track engagement, the event saw Diageo spaces transformed into immersive brand “universes” at 50 of its offices. Employees engaged with immersive brand installations, live watch parties, hands-on learning sessions, cocktail masterclasses and afternoon teas from core brands including Guinness, Johnnie Walker, Baileys and Don Julio. Simultaneously, senior leaders hosted online broadcasts and on-demand content showcased the data, insights and storytelling behind iconic consumer brands and their campaigns.
Judges saw this approach as “a great way to champion colleagues and empower them to carry the brand”.
Highly commended in this category was Primark for ‘We’re All In: Empowering Colleagues to Lead on Sustainability’.
In-House Team of the Year (Private): Vodafone
In June Vodafone and Three announced a £16.5bn merger and launched a comms initiative to gain stakeholder backing and positively sway the Competition and Markets Authority’s final decision on the deal, demonstrating the value of PR at a critical juncture.
To help make the merger a success, Vodafone’s comms function turned into a mini agency-style operation. Some members focused on managing day-to-day operations through an in-house press office and strong relationships with media and analysts. Others led PR campaigns, launching everything from new brand platforms and the latest iPhone to innovative broadband propositions. Media, analysts and other stakeholders united behind the deal, which was ultimately approved by the CMA.
Judges said: “Clearly a close-knit team delivering on a huge business challenge this year and meeting all business and comms objectives.”
Highly commended in this category was Virgin Media O2.
In-House Team of the Year (Public/Third Sector): Electrical Safety First
Despite having only a six-person comms team, this 12-month strategy, featuring six campaigns, generated more than 3,500 media mentions with 99 per cent positive sentiment, 3.1 million social media impressions, and a 5.7 percentage point increase in brand recognition.
The charity’s actions included calling for Government to stop dangerous e-bikes being sold in the UK and warning against purchasing cheap electricals from online marketplaces. As a result, its work helped shape the Product Regulation and Metrology Act.
The judges said: “Absolutely incredible in every way. Strategically. Executionally. Impact. Impressed is an understatement.”
The PRWeek Awards are sponsored by Censuswide, Ketchum, Loaded Dice Media, Onclusive, OnePoll, PR Newswire and Real Chemistry.