A guided tour of the MIXX Awards Europe 2026 submission platform hosted by an AI interpretation of Andrei Dragu — Event Director of IAB MIXX Awards Europe and CIO of GRF+ — from account setup, campaign details and team credits to category selection, submission and payment.
MIXX Awards Europe 2026
● Now Showing · 2026

MIXX Awards
Europe

Once In, Always In.Made to belong. Built to last.

★★★★★ The Submission Masterclass 18 min EN Platform Walkthrough
Do's & Don'ts

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Synopsis

What this walkthrough gives you

A guided tour of the MIXX Awards Europe 2026 submission platform hosted by an AI interpretation of Andrei Dragu - Event Director of IAB MIXX Awards Europe and CIO of GRF+ — account setup, campaign details, team credits, category selection, submission and payment. But more than the buttons: it's a short masterclass in writing an entry that actually wins. Below you'll find the platform's hard-won lessons turned into do's and don'ts, director's notes for every chapter, and one full worked example — "The Last Jar" campaign — taken end to end.

Early bird deadline
3 July 2026
Regular deadline
24 July 2026
The difference between an entry and a winner

Do's & Don'ts, with receipts

01Campaign Summary

"Think of it as the version you would tell someone smart in an elevator. Not the version where you trap them in the elevator for 45 minutes and explain the full strategic architecture of the brand ecosystem."

✕ Don't

In an increasingly fragmented omnichannel landscape, LUMEN Coffee embarked on a holistic, 360-degree brand transformation journey leveraging a synergistic ecosystem of touchpoints designed to recontextualise the role of packaging within the broader sustainability discourse, activating a multi-stakeholder narrative framework across the full consumer decision funnel and beyond…

✓ Do

Coffee jars are used for a few weeks and thrown away for decades. LUMEN redesigned its jar so the empty one becomes a biodegradable seed pot: peel the label, add soil, plant it. We turned the most-discarded object in the category into the start of something that grows — a packaging idea people kept instead of binned, and talked about because they had something to show for it.

02Results

"Massive buzz is what bees create. Awards juries usually prefer numbers."

✕ Don't

The campaign created massive buzz and incredible engagement. Everyone was talking about it. It went viral and the brand saw amazing results across all channels, with huge love from consumers and the trade alike.

✓ Do

Repeat purchase rose 23% among existing buyers over ten weeks versus the prior quarter. Unit sales grew 18% year on year with no price change and no added discounting. Brand distinctiveness lifted 11% in post-campaign tracking. Creator and organic content drove 4.2M video views and 31,000 user-posted photos of planted jars. The co-branded soil pack sold through 94%. Cost per earned engagement came in 38% below category benchmark.

03Category Rationale

"Please avoid copy-pasting the same text across all categories. Judges need to understand the specific link between the campaign and that category. Think of it as your argument in court — a very friendly court, with fewer robes, but still, evidence matters."

✕ Don't — one paragraph, pasted everywhere

This is a fantastic, award-worthy campaign that delivered outstanding results and should win in this category because it was creative, effective and innovative across every dimension of modern marketing.

✓ Do — tailored to each category

Three categories, three distinct arguments — each tied to the specific thing that category recognises. See them below.

Driving Environmental Change

The environmental impact is the mechanism, not a message. Redesigning the jar into a seed pot converted the category's most-discarded object into a reusable product the buyer completes at home — 31,000 planted jars documented by users. Behaviour change at the point of disposal, not awareness of a promise.

Customer Experience

We redesigned the post-purchase moment. The point a jar empties — normally the end of the relationship — became a new ritual: peel, plant, watch it grow. Lid guide and landing page removed friction so any buyer could complete it. A routine FMCG purchase became a hands-on experience people repeated — +23% repeat purchase.

Branded Entertainment

"The Last Jar" film earned attention rather than buying it. Following one jar from shelf to first green shoot, with no voiceover selling the idea, it worked as content people watched and shared for its own sake — 4.2M views and 31,000 user-made planting posts.

04Trophy Engraving

"This is one of those moments where spelling suddenly becomes a strategic discipline. Because once it is engraved, autocorrect can no longer save us."

✕ Don't — typos, wrong format

The Last Jarr by NorthLite for Lumen Cofee

✓ Do — correct spelling & format

The Last Jar by Northlight for LUMEN Coffee

Format: Title of Campaign by Agency for Brand / Advertiser.

Before you upload

Seven things that quietly win points

01Write before you upload

The platform is easy. The entry isn't. Draft the whole written story first, then paste — don't compose in the form at 11:48 PM.

02Respect the 300-word limit

Each major text field caps at 300 words. Clarity over jargon. If a sentence needs a glossary, cut it.

03Treat rationale as an argument

It's not an admin box — it's the case for why this campaign deserves this category. One tailored paragraph per category.

04Upload real proof

Numbers, screenshots, dashboards, research, studies. Especially for results — judges need evidence, not adjectives.

05Check trophy details

Campaign title, agency, brand — final and correctly spelled. Engraving is forever; autocorrect isn't invited.

06Use Save as Draft

You don't need to finish in one session. Entries are negotiated, not written. Drafts are your friend.

07Then actually pay

An entry is only fully valid once payment is received. The journey ends at "paid", not at "submit".

Chapter by chapter

Director's notes

00:45Account setup & activation
Use an email you actually check — not the inbox someone made in 2018 for "awards and other things". This account links to your submissions, orders and payment status, so it should sit with the person or team running the process. Have your company legal details (name, VAT, country, city, address) ready — they flow straight into invoicing later.
02:23Dashboard & navigation
The Dashboard is your starting point: latest projects, status, total value. Two directions from here — manage your account & company info, or start a new campaign. Before submitting anything, spend one minute confirming the profile is correct. Nothing ruins the poetry of a great campaign faster than wrong invoice details.
03:41Campaign details
Three steps: the story, the people, the battlefield (campaign → team → categories). Enter the title exactly as it should appear in judging and winner comms. Add brand, then agency (use "Add Agency" for more than one). Set the trophy engraving precisely: Title by Agency for Brand — spelling is a strategic discipline here.
05:14Writing the entry
Summary = the elevator version, not the 45-minute hostage version. Objectives & strategy = the real problem, the insight, the approach — "it looked cool" is rarely enough. Creative approach = what people saw, felt, did. Implementation = the beautiful little war between idea and final campaign. Innovation = sometimes just using an existing tool in a way nobody expected (which, to be fair, is also how most of us use Excel).
09:30Outputs, results & video case
Make links work, name files clearly, open access permissions — "Request access" is not a campaign asset, it's a tiny tragedy at judging. Results need proof: KPIs, context, evidence. Add a tight case video that explains challenge, idea, execution and results — without feeling like the director's cut of a strategic manifesto.
10:50Team details & credits
MIXX Awards Europe includes role-based recognition — awards celebrate campaigns, but campaigns are made by people (often people who survived seventeen versions of the same deck). Assign the right names to the right roles: Client Service, Strategy, Creative Director, Art Director, Copywriter, Media Specialist, Brand Representative. The least we can do is spell their names correctly.
11:42Category selection & rationale
Pick categories where the campaign has a real reason to compete — using technology doesn't make it a tech campaign; including influencers doesn't make it creator-led. For each category write a specific rationale (no copy-paste). Price auto-calculates as you add or remove categories, with subtotal and total at the bottom.
13:21Review, submit & payment
Before "Done – Submit": are campaign and company names correct, all required fields complete, categories truly relevant? After submitting you'll see Awaiting Payment — entries are only fully valid once paid. Pay by card (Stripe) or bank transfer. Track entries in My Submissions; track money in Orders, where finance quietly enters the room and asks if we're done here.
One entry, taken end to end

Case File — "The Last Jar"

The Last Jar
The Last Jar by Northlight for LUMEN Coffee
Brand: LUMEN Coffee Agency: Northlight National MIXX · Romania · 2026
Campaign Summary
Coffee jars are used for a few weeks and thrown away for decades. LUMEN redesigned its jar so the empty one becomes a biodegradable seed pot: peel the label, add soil, plant it. We turned the most-discarded object in the category into the start of something that grows. The launch jar shipped with herb seeds embedded in the label, a planting guide under the lid, and a film that followed one jar from kitchen shelf to windowsill garden — a packaging idea people kept instead of binned, and talked about because they had something to show for it.
Objectives & Strategy
LUMEN was a mid-tier brand with strong taste scores but low shelf distinctiveness and flat repeat purchase. The challenge: grow repeat purchase without discounting, in a category where shoppers rarely feel loyalty to a jar. The insight: people feel guilty throwing away "good" glass but rarely have a reason to keep it. The strategy: give the packaging a clear second life the buyer performs themselves — turning a disposable moment into a small, satisfying ritual tied to renewal. Existing buyers first, making the next purchase feel meaningful rather than chasing one-off trial.
Creative Approach
We treated the jar itself as the campaign, not the ad. The label became peel-and-plant seed paper; the lid carried a one-line planting guide; the glass was reshaped to sit as a stable little pot. "The Last Jar" framed it emotionally — the final jar in the cycle isn't waste, it's a beginning. The film followed a single jar through one household, ending on the first green shoot. No actors telling you it mattered — just the jar doing something unexpected in real hands.
Implementation
Launched across 1,200 grocery stores with the redesigned jar as hero. In-store: shelf wobblers and an end-cap showing the jar-to-plant transition. Film on YouTube, Meta and CTV, cut into 6-second planting moments for social. Planting guide on pack and on a simple landing page. 40 food & gardening creators planted on camera; a national gardening retailer ran a co-branded soil pack. Timed for early spring when planting intent peaks. Ten-week rollout, shelf reset to harvest-season follow-up.
Innovation
Not new technology — redesigning the most disposable object in the category into a functional product the buyer completes. The label is the seed-delivery mechanism, the lid is the instruction, the jar is the pot: three existing pack elements, each given a second job, no gimmick. It moved sustainability from a back-of-pack claim to an action in the buyer's hands, and made the proof something people grew and photographed themselves — earned media without asking anyone to post.
Results
Repeat purchase +23% among existing buyers over ten weeks vs prior quarter. Unit sales +18% YoY, no price change, no added discounting. Brand distinctiveness +11% in post-campaign tracking. 4.2M video views and 31,000 user-posted photos of planted jars. Co-branded soil pack sold through 94%. Cost per earned engagement 38% below category benchmark. (Supporting file: results_thelastjar.pdf)
Credits

Cast & crew

MI
Client Service
Maria Ionescu
DL
Strategy
David Lung
EP
Creative Director
Elena Pavel
TR
Art Director
Tomas Reiner
SM
Copywriter
Sofia Marchetti
AC
Media Specialist
Andrei Costa
KN
Brand Rep
Klara Nilsson
The home straight

From three categories to "Awaiting Payment"

Select 3 categories
Environmental Change · Customer Experience · Branded Entertainment
Price auto-calculates
Subtotal & total update at the bottom as you go
Add & remove to test
Drop a 4th category, watch the total jump, remove it — total drops back live
Done – Submit project
Confirm at the prompt → success message
Status in My Submissions
Entry now valid only once paid
3 categories selected · subtotal shown at bottom of page
Total auto-calculated
● Awaiting Payment
Enter the AwardsEnter