Marketing Events Awards Hong Kong 2026 winners unveiled

McDonald’s Hong Kong and BBDO Hong Kong have won big at the Marketing Events Awards Hong Kong 2026, being crowned Event Marketer of the Year and Event Agency of the Year, respectively.

Designed to celebrate outstanding event marketing initiatives that have reshaped the marketing landscape across North Asia, the awards drew a crowd of enthusiastic industry experts to Hotel ICON on 16 July, all vying for recognition of their exceptional work. Each entry was rigorously assessed by an independent panel of 23 senior brand-side marketers.

See the full list of winners here.

See the full jury here. 

Standing out from the crowd and impressing the jury was McDonald’s Hong Kong, which took home nine trophies in total, including seven golds, one silver, and one bronze, along with a number of thought-provoking campaigns: “I’m lovin’ 50”, “Back to the Beginning”, and “From Bites to Beats”. 

The "Back to the Beginning" campaign stood out as McDonald's Hong Kong's most remarkable initiative, impressing the judges the most. Running from 14 September to 19 October 2025, the campaign was done in collaboration with the Event Agency of the Year winner, BBDO Hong Kong and media agency OMD Hong Kong.

To celebrate McDonald's Hong Kong's 50th anniversary, the campaign returned to the brand's origins. Social listening showed that Hongkongers value their own restaurant memories over corporate milestones. Daily conversations about past menu items, toys, uniforms, and store designs confirmed this. To build brand love, the brand could not be the star. It had to be the platform.

The campaign transformed McDonald's Hong Kong's 1975 origin story into an immersive nostalgic experience, boosting both brand and business. It launched with "Back to the Beginning", a 10-minute period drama featuring local actor Nicholas Tse as the first store manager, James Chu. The film showed Chu and his rookie crew frantically preparing for opening day, only to be flooded by a huge crowd on Paterson Street.

The campaign also relocated the film set to the West Kowloon Cultural District as a ticketed immersive exhibition, where fans explored a 1975 storefront and curated zones across 50 years of history. The centrepiece was a 1:1 recreation of Hong Kong's first McDonald's on Paterson Street, allowing visitors to step back into the brand's 1975 origins. It transformed brand history into a tangible, walk-through experience.

Beyond the restaurant, the exhibition recreated 1975 Paterson Street as a nostalgic streetscape with period details and neon signage evoking 1970s Causeway Bay. This gave the experience a richer sense of time and place, turning the visit from a store replica into an immersive glimpse of old Hong Kong.

The exhibition featured zones such as The Grimace Book Store, which turned classic packaging, posters, and tray mats into cultural artifacts, showing McDonald's deep roots in Hong Kong's collective memory. Meanwhile, The Hamburglar Boutique traced the evolution of crew uniforms across generations, celebrating both the design and the people behind the brand's everyday presence in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, BBDO Hong Kong, the creative agency behind the campaign, won the prestigious Event Agency of the Year award. The agency took home nine trophies in total, including seven golds, one silver, and one bronze, for its work on McDonald's Hong Kong's "I'm lovin' 50," "Back to the Beginning," and "From Bites to Beats" campaigns.

The "From Bites to Beats" campaign, also born from McDonald's 50th anniversary, aimed to generate citywide buzz and drive participation for the "McDonald's 50th Anniversary 'I'm lovin' it' Concert." This one-night music event brought the city's shared soundtrack to life, while driving donations to Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) and lifting brand perception through stronger relevance scores.

This campaign was drawn from McDonald's decades-long participation in Hong Kong pop culture. For years, the brand's advertising has tapped into the latest stars and music. With its 50th anniversary, McDonald's aimed to create a pop culture event that celebrated this legacy.

Featuring a once-in-a-lifetime stage collaboration between Nicholas Tse, Eason Chan, Keung To, Mirror, Hins Cheung, Joey Yung, and Softhard, the campaign democratised access by making tickets "Not for sale." The only way to get in was to donate to RMHC, transforming a concert into a citywide movement for good.

From nostalgic McDonald’s jingles and TVCs to timeless Cantopop hits, the evening was a joyful tribute to five decades of connection between McDonald’s and Hong Kong people. Brand elements such as iconic McDonaldland characters were also featured on the stage as performers. 

This year, the competition was incredibly tight, with 370 entries across 37 categories and a total of 115 trophies awarded to the leading brands and agencies across the regions at the ceremony. MARKETING-INTERACTIVE would like to thank the esteemed panel of judges for their time in judging the entries.

We would also like to congratulate all the finalists who have achieved remarkable success. We are confident that this year's awards have set the stage for exciting and innovative initiatives within the industry in the years to come.

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