The 2025 Torchie Awards: Partner Categories

The Braze Alloys ecosystem includes the best of the best, whether you’re looking for a partner in technology or solutions. The partner categories of the Torchie Awards aim to celebrate this community of innovators who help brands of all sizes take the craft of customer engagement to the next level. Let’s meet our finalists for the Partner Campaign of the Year, Service Partner of the Year, Technology Partner of the Year, and Transformation Partner of the Year.

Partner Campaign of the Year

This category recognizes a partner who delivered a groundbreaking campaign with Braze and set new standards in creativity and customer engagement.

AKQA for KFC
AKQA worked with KFC Australia to bring a fresh spin to “Christmas in July” through an interactive advent calendar experience inside the KFC app. Customers received unique daily offers via animated in-app messages powered by Braze Catalogs and Liquid scripting. A VIP contest added aspirational appeal, while full automation enabled real-time optimization and personalization at scale. The campaign became KFC’s most successful acquisition effort ever.

Dwarf, for Spenn (Norwegian and Strawberry Hotels)
Spenn, jointly owned by Norwegian and Strawberry Hotels, is a first-of-its-kind, cross-industry loyalty currency launched to unify and modernize how Nordics-based consumers collect and redeem points across travel, hospitality, and a growing network of partners. Built with a modular, API-first architecture and powered by Braze for real-time, personalized communication, the platform is designed for long-term scale and partner expansion. In just 9 days, 100,000 users registered, and the app became the #1 App Store download in Norway. Over 80% of partner members connected a loyalty program in the Spenn app, enabling them to earn and use Spenn across partner programs. Spenn’s in-app Christmas campaign drove over 80,000 daily active users, showcasing the platform’s strong engagement. Meanwhile, emails sent through Braze as part of the same campaign achieved a 98.29% delivery rate, 58.14% unique open rate, and an 18.11% click rate—far surpassing industry benchmarks.

Publicis Groupe for McDonald's
McDonald’s and Publicis launched a first-of-its-kind weather-triggered campaign using Braze and AccuWeather to drive McDelivery orders based on local, real-time weather conditions. By defining “unseasonable” and “inclement” weather uniquely for each zip code, the team ensured messaging was hyper-relevant—prompting orders when weather made delivery most appealing. The system was fully integrated within Braze using Connected Content, Content Blocks, and Catalogs to streamline processing and reduce API calls.

VML for Pizza Hut
To engage fans during March Madness, a critical opportunity to drive sales, VML partnered closely with Pizza Hut and the NCAA to co-create a comprehensive ecosystem that drove first-time purchases and encouraged repeat orders, utilizing Braze’s platform for personalized messaging across multiple channels. The Hutty campaign uniquely blended cutting-edge AI technology with real-world experiences, generating significant buzz through a creative pre-launch strategy.

Service Partner of the Year

This award celebrates a service partner who significantly advanced their Braze practice through comprehensive training and innovation to markedly improve business outcomes.

Marketing Decisions
Marketing Decisions has rapidly scaled its practice over the past year, expanding its Braze client base to over 70 brands. Their hands-on delivery includes complex migrations and active participation in Braze’s Customer Success pilot initiative, managing success plans to drive long-term client value.

Merkle
Merkle has significantly deepened its investment in the past year, driving enterprise client wins, expanding globally, and delivering strong results through strategic collaboration. With 221+ Braze certifications, a dedicated EMEA CoE, and a scalable global delivery model, Merkle is positioned to grow Braze adoption and innovation.

Stitch
Stitch has redefined what it means to be a Braze services partner, helping customers go further, faster. Their team of Braze-first strategists, with over 600 certifications across the US, Canada, Mexico, and the UK – help to drive adoption, scale campaigns, and strengthen data foundations to deliver real business results. Stitch’s innovative support helps customers turn manual workflows into automated systems and unlocks creative ways to engage customers from go-live and beyond.

VML
VML consistently delivers solid performance across impact, innovation, and execution in their work with Braze. They effectively contribute to our customers' success by helping to achieve measurable business outcomes and tackle significant strategic hurdles. Their approach to innovation involves thoughtfully applying Braze and other tools, demonstrating a capacity for creative solutions.

Technology Partner of the Year

This award goes to a technology/ISV partner that has enhanced Braze through key integrations and collaboration, benefiting our team and our customers. 

AWS
AWS is helping customers move faster and engage smarter with innovations like Customer Data Integration (CDI), Amazon Personalize, and Bedrock AI. These integrations empower brands to unlock advanced AI and machine learning capabilities, accelerate time-to-value, and expand into new industries with tailored solutions — driving more personalized and impactful customer engagement.

Contentsquare
Contentsquare is making a growing impact in the Braze ecosystem by helping brands better understand customer behavior and deliver more personalized, impactful experiences. Together, we’re deepening our integration and co-developing new capabilities, with a roadmap of solutions planned for 2025 and beyond, all designed to help customers unlock greater value and engagement.

Segment
Segment has been helping brands deliver richer, more personalized communications across channels like email, SMS, and WhatsApp since 2019. With 300+ customers using the Segment integration, they’ve been powering an average of 45 billion API calls each month to fuel seamless, data-driven engagement. With ongoing investment in their integration and product innovation, Segment continues to empower marketers to move faster and create more impactful customer experiences.

Snowflake
Snowflake continues to push innovation that helps marketers move faster and work smarter. Together with Braze, they’re developing an AI-powered feature that lets teams query campaign data in natural language—no dashboards or IT requests needed. Building on the success of the Braze Instant Insights (BII) Native App for reporting, Snowflake continues to help marketers unlock deeper insights and drive more effective engagement.

Transformation Partner of the Year

This award honors a partner whose innovative solutions have transformed a single client’s business and drastically enhanced their customer experience capabilities.

Deloitte Digital ANZ
Deloitte Digital ANZ is being recognized for driving significant, Braze-centric transformations for multiple enterprise clients in ANZ, consistently migrating them from legacy systems to deliver enhanced value.

Ragnarok
To unify fragmented franchise communications, Ragnarok partnered with Hand and Stone to migrate 550+ spa locations from a legacy ESP to Braze. The engagement included complex data integrations, advanced personalization and deep change management to replace hundreds of campaign variations with a dynamic, centralized system.

Stitch
Stitch teamed up with Taco Bell to transform their campaign workflows by leveraging AI, automation, and more advanced Braze features. By streamlining and optimizing their processes, like manual QA, Stitch unlocked valuable bandwidth — empowering their team to experiment more freely and tackle more complex use cases within Braze.

WillowTree
WillowTree helped White Castle transform its underperforming loyalty program into a personalized, gamified experience powered by Braze. They led the full redesign using custom segmentation, dynamic content, and triggered journeys to deepen engagement. By making smart use of Braze’s advanced capabilities, WillowTree delivered a measurable uplift in digital performance and loyalty impact aligned to White Castle’s long-term growth goals.

Ready to see who takes home the Torchie? 

Join us at Forge to celebrate all the finalists, learn from the best in the industry, and cast your vote for the People's Choice Award. If you can’t meet us in Las Vegas, join us for Forge Digital!

Whether you're a long-time member of the community or just getting started, Forge is where you’ll gain the insight, inspiration, and support to stand out by using your creativity in new ways.