That was the German Brand Award 2026
Insights for the Future of Brand Management
What began in 2016 as an industry gathering with 250 guests at the VW DRIVE Forum is now one of the key platforms for holistic brand management in the German-speaking world. Under the motto ‘Brand Forward’, this very journey was at the heart of the anniversary year. And that was precisely what the award show was all about. However, without taking the spotlight away from the real highlights of the evening: the winners.
The highlights of the German Brand Convention
The afternoon kicked off with the German Brand Convention, the German Brand Awards’ networking event. On three stages, brand professionals, winning teams and jury members came together to discuss the issues shaping brand management.
Sophia Rödiger (1 Komma 5°), a former winner and now a jury member, hosted one of the programme’s highlights right at the start: The live pitches for the Startup of the Year honorary award. Super Pop, Atmos Space Cargo and Moelk faced the challenge of explaining their business models in just five minutes – and winning the audience over. It was then up to the audience to decide via live voting – and they chose the Stuttgart-based startup that is taking the market by storm with its fibre-rich lemonades: Super Pop.
Market research firm Ipsos then led the way into a deep dive into the subject matter: Gunther Theophile presented, for the first time, the findings of the Ipsos study “Between Efficiency and Loss of Trust – How Much AI Can a Brand Tolerate?”, which provided new insights into the tension between AI-generated advertising content and consumers’ trust in brands.
From insights to controversies: How much AI can creativity tolerate?
The thematic cluster “AI in brand management” ran like a common thread through the afternoon: in the panel discussion “Brand or Machine?”, Stefan Lara Torres (PAGE) made a case for supporting creatives: “Artificial intelligence is sparking a new and magnificent form of creation. However, there is a lack of understanding about how to work with it. And it is a major fallacy for executives to rely on AI models purely for reasons of efficiency.”
Panel host and judge Katrin Menne (Merck) put the challenge in figurative terms: “Creativity is like a muscle that needs to be exercised. And it doesn’t get any better if you just let AI do all the work all the time.” Brand and AI consultant Ivana Radanovic (12ft) added, with regard to the EU AI Act: “Transparency is important even without a labelling requirement.”
The panel ‘How AIre you?’ brought together various perspectives from day-to-day life in corporations and agencies and posed the key question: How ready are we really for the dawn of the AI era? Nils Hartmann (Parasol Island) took a clear stance: as long as you’re honest in your use of artificial intelligence, you’ll grow from it – but that won’t happen if everything is automated, “because then we’ll only produce mediocrity.” The crucial question is rather: “When am I in the loop, when do I step back, when am I in the lead?” Nico Wüst from the agency sector (Strichpunkt Identity) added: “It’s people who make the difference. In every technology.” Finally, host Moritz Piel (gmk Markenberatung) summed it up: “The most honest answer to ‘How AIre you?’ is rarely ‘we’re ready’, but rather ‘we’re on our way’.”
The Awards Show: Gala Dinner and Shouts of Joy
The highlight of the evening was the Awards Show, featuring a gala dinner and attended by nearly 800 guests. For just under four hours, the stage was entirely dedicated to the award-winning brands, campaigns and personalities of the German Brand Awards 2026.
Guests from industry, small and medium-sized enterprises and the creative sector were presented with 488 Winner awards, 68 Gold awards and 13 Best of Best awards in recognition of outstanding brand work and the teams behind it. With this tally, the tenth edition of the German Brand Award set a new benchmark for recognising excellent brand management in the German-speaking world.
An anniversary with a look to the future
25 June 2026 thus marks not only a highlight for the German Brand Awards, but also a turning point: what began as an industry gathering has evolved into a platform which, with 18 participating nations, is larger, more international and more in-depth than ever before. For the future of the award, this means growing through carefully selected partnerships whilst maintaining the high standard of the accolade.
