Awards juries like to believe they reward the best work. More often, they end up revealing what an industry values most at that moment in time.
In Miami, as judges debated the first Grand Prix at The Drum's Commerce Media Awards, that tension played out in full. By the end, the room landed – decisively – on a winner: WPP's Wavemaker-led partnership with Church & Dwight, powered by Incremental and Skai.
It was a clear result. But the journey there – and what the work actually represents – tells the more interesting story.
A Decision Shaped by Where Commerce Media Is Heading
From the outset, the judges weren't short of strong contenders. Some leaned heavily into advanced infrastructure – connecting first-party data into walled gardens in real time. Others were more recognizably 'marketing': tightly executed campaigns with clear commercial impact.
That split – systems versus storytelling – ran through the entire discussion.
"This wasn't really a campaign… it was more infrastructure," the judges agreed.
That comment, aimed at one of the technical frontrunners, could just as easily have applied to the eventual winner. Because what WPP and its partners presented wasn't a single campaign in the traditional sense. It was something closer to an operating system.
What Actually Won: A Connected Engine, Not a One-Off Campaign
The Grand Prix-winning work centered on Church & Dwight, the consumer goods company behind brands like Arm & Hammer, TheraBreath and Batiste.
The challenge was familiar to anyone operating in retail media: plenty of data, but not enough clarity. Campaigns were still being judged on last-touch attribution and lagging ROAS metrics – blunt tools in a fast-moving, multi-platform environment.
The solution brought together three players: Wavemaker as strategic lead, Incremental providing daily incrementality modeling and Skai enabling automated activation.
The breakthrough wasn't any single component. It was the integration.
Incremental's daily recommendations – based on causal, incrementality-driven models – flowed directly into Skai's platform, where they were executed automatically across thousands of campaigns. Wavemaker provided the strategic guardrails.
In practical terms, that meant decisions that used to take weeks were now made – and acted on – within hours.
Why the Judges Leaned In
As the room debated, one theme kept resurfacing: incrementality.
"Where to spend our next best dollar is the holy grail," was how one judge put it.
WPP's work didn't just measure incrementality – it operationalized it. And crucially, it did so at scale.
Instead of static monthly budgets, the system introduced fluid, weekly reallocation, constantly shifting spend toward the highest-performing opportunities. Campaign structures were rebuilt to allow granular testing – by SKU, by page type, by product category.
The results were hard to ignore: Batiste saw a 292% increase in incremental ROI with flat spend; TheraBreath a 161% improvement in incremental ROI, alongside topline growth; Arm & Hammer had record sales on Instacart, with 32% year-on-year growth in key segments.
But the numbers alone didn't win it. What resonated was the sense that this was repeatable – not a one-off success, but a system that compounds over time.
"Every week of optimization builds a richer dataset… creating a flywheel."
The Moment of Doubt
And yet, the decision wasn't without tension.
At one point, judges pushed back on the direction the debate was taking – questioning whether the leading entries were drifting too far into technology and away from marketing craft.
"They're very much about sophisticated platforms and tech… not about brilliant campaigns," said one.
A more traditional campaign – credited with strong creative and commercial performance – was even pulled back into contention late in the process.
It forced the room to confront a bigger question: What does creativity look like in commerce media today?
A Subtle Redefinition of Creativity
This is where the WPP work ultimately held its ground. Because while it may not have looked like creativity in the classic sense – no big idea, no standout piece of communication – the judges increasingly saw creativity in a different place: in how data was structured and applied, in how budgets were dynamically reallocated, in how testing frameworks were designed and in how disparate systems were connected into something coherent.
In other words, creativity had shifted from message to method. Or, as one line of thinking in the room suggested, this wasn't a lack of creativity – it was creativity expressed through systems.
The Final Call
When it came down to the final vote – between a more traditional campaign and WPP's incrementality engine – the result was decisive.
The judges backed the work that felt closest to the future of the discipline.
Not because it was perfect. Not because it ticked every traditional box. But because it addressed the biggest, most pressing problem in the room – and did so in a way that others could realistically follow.
What This Win Really Means
WPP's Grand Prix win isn't just about one piece of work. It's a signal.
Commerce media is maturing – and in doing so, it's shifting its definition of excellence.
Measurement is no longer a support act – it's central. Infrastructure is becoming a competitive advantage. Creativity is being redefined as how intelligently systems are designed and deployed.
That doesn't mean traditional campaign thinking disappears. The late-stage pushback proved it still matters.
But, for now at least, the balance has tipped.
The most celebrated work in the room wasn't the one that told the best story. It was the one that could prove – continuously, dynamically and at scale – that the story was working.
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