The World Creative Rankings Mid-Year Leaderboards are here: see who’s out in front in 2025

As always, the full World Creative Rankings will only be revealed once the entire calendar of creative awards is complete at the end of 2025. But with The Drum Marketing Awards, Cannes Lions, D&AD, The One Show and The Clios already wrapped, this release hints at the work and companies that will be in contention to top the final tables.

You can now check out The Mid-Year Leaderboards for campaigns, advertisers, agencies and networks and holding companies.

Some 1,091 campaigns from 708 advertisers working with 609 agencies have been analyzed to produce this mid-year report.

As of 2024, The Drum reformulated the points system that drives the rankings, with awards competitions now grouped as global majors and regional and local shows.

Majors are defined as shows attracting global entries and that have global representation on juries. Regional shows are focused on specific geographies or have unique elements in categories or juries. Local shows are for local or single markets and allow an opportunity for breakthrough work from smaller countries, companies and teams to be featured in the rankings.

After reviewing the shows with our research and editorial teams and in dialogue with our creative community, we arranged them in the following structure:

• Majors: The Drum Awards, Cannes Lions, D&AD, The Clio Awards, The One Show, London International Awards
• Regional: Spikes Asia, Gerety, AdFest, Golden Drum, The New York Advertising Awards, Epica, Cresta, Eurobest, El Ojo, The Andy’s, Dubai Lynx, Kinsale Sharks
• Local: ADC US, Danish Creative Circle, The Loeries, ADCC, Guldagget

As one of the majors, The Drum Awards Festival in November and specifically its creative categories will have a big bearing on the eventual outcome. Entries are open until Thursday, September 4 at thedrumawards.com.