The ceremony, held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, recognised the most innovative, authentic and effective advertising campaigns that embodied TikTok’s signature creativity, community spirit and performance potential while delivering tangible business impact and creating lasting cultural moments.

The 2025 TikTok Ad Awards aimed to honour brands and agencies that transcended conventional advertising by crafting joyful, platform-native experiences in their work. Embracing trends, creators, sound and community engagement, these campaigns drove measurable results through TikTok-first ideas that felt organic, authentic and innovative across the full marketing funnel.

With a total of six winners, South Africa showcased its exceptional creativity this year, with multiple standout campaigns earning recognition across key categories.

Big branding energy

This award category celebrates the best upper-funnel strategies and creative storytelling to achieve standout brand recall.

• Forever Golf, Volkswagen & Ogilvy South Africa – Gold Winner

Reinventing a local icon by turning product launch into participatory storytelling.

Volkswagen leaned into South Africa’s deep cultural connection with the Golf by launching Forever Golf, a campaign inviting the public to co-create the new model’s nickname through a docuseries and social conversation, making the car not just a product, but a story South Africans wrote together. By handing over the mic to its audience and threading that collaboration throughout the campaign, the brand amplified emotional recall and integrated genuine cultural resonance into its upper-funnel storytelling.

• Try January, Heineken Beverages (Savanna Cider) & TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris – Bronze

Turning New Year’s inertia into an engaging nationwide movement.

TikTok’s new award at The One Show 2026

Savanna’s #TryJanuary reframes the rigid idea of Dry January into a playful, inclusive movement encouraging South Africans to just try, whether that’s new habits, small goals, or fitness challenges, without pressure for perfection. Anchored by creative content that balances humour with real lifestyle relevance, the campaign drove widespread conversation and connected the brand to positive cultural momentum early in the year.

Bougie on a budget

This award category showcases campaigns that maximised impact through inventive use of modest production budgets.

• The TikTok Test Drive, Audi & Ogilvy South Africa – Gold

Turning everyday scrolling into an immersive brand experience without a traditional production budget.

Audi reimagined the conventional test drive by bringing it straight into people’s hands, literally, via TikTok. Rather than filming new creative, the campaign hacked TikTok’s native “turn your phone” mechanic to let users virtually drive the new RS3 within their feed, gamifying a key part of the car-buying journey and sparking real-world interest. This inventive approach converted millions of virtual interactions into a significant increase in actual test drives, all without the cost of bespoke footage, demonstrating how clever use of platform mechanics can deliver a big impact on a lean budget.

It’s the creative for me

This award category focuses on the idea and its strategy, and celebrates the brands and agencies that dared to push the boundaries of creativity with campaigns that were built TikTok-first, and showcased impactful results.

• It’s the little things that satisfy us most, Chicken Licken South Africa & Juno Media & Joe Public – Gold

Celebrating everyday satisfaction with delightfully shareable moments.

Chicken Licken’s campaign magnifies the joy of small culinary pleasures by spotlighting relatable, bite-sized moments that resonate culturally and socially. Rooted in TikTok-ready creativity, the work leverages colloquial humour and visual storytelling that naturally live on social feeds, turning ordinary experiences into shareable brand love. (Visual details inferred; please confirm specific execution description if available.)

• Forever Golf, Volkswagen & Ogilvy South Africa – Silver

Blending cultural storytelling with social participation to reinvigorate a beloved brand.

• Save Our Stay, City Lodge Hotels South Africa & TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris – Silver

Reframing a travel recovery story with compassionate creative storytelling.

City Lodge’s Save Our Stay highlighted empathy and human connection during uncertain travel times, weaving a narrative that resonates emotionally while giving audiences content that feels genuine and worth sharing on social.

“The Ad Awards winners of this year show what’s possible when brands embrace TikTok not just as a media platform, but as a creative canvas,” said Shadi Kandil, general manager, Global Business Solutions, Middle East, Turkey, Africa, Central and South Asia, TikTok. “From community-powered storytelling to performance-driven creativity, these campaigns created culture, inspired joy, and delivered meaningful business impact across the region and beyond.”