At a time when conversations about creativity increasingly move beyond agencies and into boardrooms, The One Club for Creativity has announced the brand-side professionals who will serve on the jury for the Creative Marketer special award at The One Show 2026. The award focuses not on agencies alone, but on the senior marketing leaders who make bold creative decisions possible inside organisations.
Formerly known as the CMO Pencil, the recognition highlights senior brand figures, CMOs and other marketing executives, whose influence helped position creativity as a strategic priority rather than a tactical afterthought. The emphasis is less on individual campaigns and more on leadership: the willingness to support risk, back ideas through internal processes, and connect creative ambition with measurable business outcomes.
This year’s jury reflects that perspective, bringing together marketers who operate at the intersection of brand building, innovation, and organisational decision-making:
- Chris Bellinger – CCO, PepsiCo Foods US
- Soyoung Kang – President, eos Products
- Seth Matlins – Founder, The Wisdomous Company
- Arianna Orpello Lewko – CMO, Geico
- Thomas Ranese – CMO, Intuit
- Geoff Seeley – CMO, PayPal
- Jess Vultaggio – VP Creative, Capabilities & Innovation, Kraft Heinz
- Iwo Zakowski – Head of Live Games Marketing, Supercell
Last year, The One Show opened the Creative Marketer award to the wider industry as an enterable category. Previously, eligibility was limited to a small group of top-scoring campaigns drawn from Best of Discipline winners and multiple Gold Pencil recipients. The change allows agencies to directly highlight the role of client partners whose support often shapes whether ambitious creative work actually makes it to market.
Behind the awards ecosystem sits The One Club for Creativity, the non-profit organisation that reinvests entry revenues into education, professional development, and access initiatives aimed at sustaining the global creative community – a reminder that awards, despite frequent debate about their relevance, still function as infrastructure for industry learning, visibility, and talent development.
Entries for The One Show 2026 are now open, with submission fees increasing after each deadline period. The extended deadline is February 6, while the final deadline is set for February 20, 2026.
The full One Show 2026 jury, comprising more than 280 creative leaders from 46 countries, has also been announced, reflecting the competition’s global scope and industry reach. Further details about submissions and the awards programme are available through The One Show 2026.
