Who is defining excellence across the global Internet in 2025? Dive into the trends and projects that colored Webby Award-winning work across digital industries. Part of an annual report, the 2025 Webby Awards Industry Index ranks the highest-awarded organizations in the 29th Annual Webby Awards—mapping who is setting the bar across advertising, media, production, gaming, podcasts, and brand work.

Below, explore the top companies and strategies shaping digital excellence, globally.

What We’re Seeing Broadly

Brands and creative partners leaned into building full universes. Social impact work remains steady, despite industry challenges. The creator economy is taking a stronger hold in our competition, and shaping digital industries. And next up: AI and immersive experiences will become more prominent in creative work.

Single ad campaigns drops aren’t enough. Branded universes won this year. 
Agencies leaned into more serialized and longform ecosystems in TBWA\ MEDIA ARTS LAB’s “Suerte!” and “Little Garlic” shortform films that function as cultural tributes. Wieden+Kennedy and We Are Social embedded themselves into anime’s bootlegging subculture by producing WcDonald’s, a monthlong universe of weekly anime shorts, manga and immersive dining experiences for anime fans

SERVICEPLAN GERMANY turned constraint into a creative asset, making inflation tangible through Penny Price Packs. DEPT® used interactivity to help children process loss in the Sesame Grief Project.

Despite industry-wide rollbacks, purpose-driven work remained at the center of agency networks’ executions.  
Ogilvy created a VR sanctuary for Olympic athletes in Powerade Mindzone. SERVICEPLAN GERMANY transformed opioids into a lifeline in their initiative 855-HOW-TO-QUIT-(OPIOIDS).

Earned-media-first campaigns pack a bigger punch this year, with campaigns that leveraged celebrity talent and fan enthusiasm to create noise online. Standouts included Wieden+Kennedy’s challenge to cult coffee drinkers, Iced Coffee Dare, Ogilvy’s Michael CereVe spot, and TBWA Worldwide’s Chicken McNuggets of Love, which tapped into niche Internet math culture by offering individual nuggets for the first time globally. Headless CMS and emotional resonance informed DEPT®’s website revamp for herbal drops brand Ricola and its one-page scroll experience for Docusign.

Content ecosystems replaced standalone programming for award-winning media companies. 
This year’s leading media companies continued creating full ecosystems for their programming through companion content, including MTV Entertainment Studios’ The Pit and its recaps of RuPaul’s Drag Race, to Netflix’s The Menendez Brothers Podcast accompanying its feature-length documentary.

Emerging tech made multi-format content more explorable in this year’s top projects. National Geographic used interactive maps to envision Hawaii’s sustainable future in Ancient Practice, Future Promise. NBCUniversal’s OLI deployed AI-powered conversational guides to help viewers discover Olympics coverage.

Documentary-style depth became required listening as podcasts elevated investigative storytelling.
From weekly programs to limited non-fiction series, this year’s award-winning podcasts showed audiences’ growing desire for deep, investigative journalism that centers marginalized voices—including Wondery’s Hysterical exploring a mysterious illness and Empire City, which pulls back the curtain on the NYPD’s origin story. iHeartMedia’s We the Unhoused brings individuals at the heart of LA’s housing crisis to the forefront.

Celebrity-driven shows still reign supreme, with podcast distributors building a portfolio of high-profile talent as hosts. iHeartMedia’s Las Culturistas leverage celebrity and humor to deliver weekly pop culture conversations. Shows like Energy Curfew Music Hour blended formats—with futuristic world-building and live performances—to deliver a musical variety show.

Production studios blurred the lines between art, commerce, and cultural commentary
m ss ng p eces turned a promotional video into an art film with “Echoes of Ailey,” a 35mm film that blends dance and memory to promote the Whitney Museums’ exhibition for the late choreographer. Ads became meta commentaries on the creative industry in O Positive satirized spot on the experiences creatives face for the ACIP, resulting in two award-winning spots: “Museum Worthy” and “The Journey.”

INDIANA PRODUCTION’s Assume that I Can borrowed visual language from Nike and Under Armour to reframe the disabled experience as one that is empowering. Gaming studios are leveraging entertainment as vehicles for cultural preservation, like Monks’ Ubisoft x Google Paris AR Geospatial experience.

Nostalgia met authenticity as brands shifted from piggybacking off culture to properly recognizing it.
McDonald’s mined decades of cameos in anime to create an expansive universe of content, and immersive experiences for consumers, through their work with agency partners on WcDonald’s.
In a move to uplift the creative community authentically, YouTube Presents Flowers recognized Black creators whose early work shaped the platform.    

Brands this year democratized knowledge and upskilling. Whether sharing AI or coding, these brands positioned themselves as infrastructures to tap into tech innovation, from Google’s DeepMind Podcast and ShiffBot, to Samsung’s Creator Collective, which provided an entrepreneurial roadmap for aspiring creators.

Enter the 30th Annual Webby Awards to Join the Internet’s Top Companies 

As the global award for excellence on the Internet, The Webby Awards can take your company to new heights, but only if you participate. Submit work in the 30th Annual Webby Awards by the Early Entry Deadline on Friday, October 24, 2025 for best pricing.

Project Methodology

In October 2025, we analyzed projects from the highest-performing companies, across six key industries that were over-indexed in the 29th Annual Webby Awards to understand which five companies ranked highest in their respective industries—and their entered work. We pulled all results into the 2025 Webby Awards Industry Index, an annual project that showcases which companies produced highest-awarded projects in our award program with insights about the work. Each company is ranked by the number of Webby Awards, People’s Voice Awards, nominations and honors their work received in last year’s competition. Webby Award and People’s Voice Award wins weigh heavier in our calculations.

Explore the 2025 Webby Awards Indexes 

Our industry is part of a wider project: The 2025 Webby Awards Indexes, which rank the companies and countries shaping excellence on the Internet. Visit our hub to explore the 2025 International Index, and hear from the teams behind this year’s best projects.