October Marketer of the Month
Our October Marketer of the Month is Sophia Jin from Seated! Sophia leads Seated’s CRM strategy as Associate Director, CRM Marketing. We’re excited to recognize Sophia for her work spearheading an exceptional team as a Braze champion and consistently helping others in the Braze Bonfire Community. Congratulations, Sophia!October Marketer of the Month
Our October Marketer of the Month is Michelle Forde, Senior Marketing Manager at Hachette Book Group! 🎉 With over a decade of experience in the publishing industry, Michelle has been instrumental in leading Hachette's consumer email marketing program and audience acquisitions. Her passion for books and innovative marketing strategies have driven successful campaigns, including her exciting plans for Cyber Week and the holiday season. Join us in celebrating shelloquent achievements! 🌟 Check out her blog post here.July Marketer of the Month
Join us in congratulating ConorIrvine as our July Marketer of the Month! As a CRM Automations Specialist at DICE, Conor has been instrumental in transforming fan experiences. His dedication to building strong customer relationships and his passion for collaborative problem-solving truly embody the spirit of the Braze Bonfire community. Congratulations Conor! Read more about his career journey here.February Marketer of the Month
We’re excited to announce Kristijan Arsov as our February Marketer of the Month! Kristijan uses Braze at Lifesum as a Lifecycle Marketing Manager. We want to recognize how essential he has been in community-building events in the Nordic region, providing product feedback, and helping us amplify the new Braze Bonfire platform. Congratulations Kristijan, and thank you for all of your efforts!Announcing the 2025 Torchie Awards Finalists
Announcing the 2025 Torchie Awards Finalists Every year, Braze honors the marketers and brands redefining what’s possible in customer engagement. Whether you’ve launched a killer campaign, driven real impact, or led with creativity and heart, we want to celebrate you. This year, we received over 270 outstanding submissions across 11 categories, and one thing is clear: the Braze community is leading the way. Your creativity, passion, and incredible stories inspired us. The results were so close in every category that this year, we’re doing something new to bring you into the selection process. Your Vote Matters: The People's Choice Awards Get ready to make your voice heard at Forge! For the first time ever, the community will select an additional winner for the People's Choice Award in two of our top categories: Campaign of the Year and Creative Excellence. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing more about the finalists in these two categories, so you can get to know their stories and the impressive work they’ve done. At Forge, from September 29–September 30, you'll be able to cast your vote for your favorite, whether you're attending in Las Vegas or joining us for Forge Digital. Your vote will honor the teams and campaigns that have truly set a new standard for customer engagement. The People's Choice winners will be announced on the final day of Forge. Meet the 2025 Torchie Awards Finalists But first, it’s time to reveal all of the finalists for the 2025 Torchie Awards! Customer Awards Bonfire Community Leader of the Year This award recognizes an outstanding community member who is known for helping other Braze users in the Bonfire community. Our finalists are: Allan Heo (For Now Marketing) Daphné Leblanc (Spark Networks) Lior Peleg (HippoCampus Tech LTD) Manoj Kumar (Digitas) Ted Scott (Cognizant) Braze for Impact This award recognizes companies that have used Braze to create positive social change within their communities. The finalists are: Boys and Girls Club of America iFood Venmo Volo Sports Campaign of the Year This award recognizes campaigns that show strategic leadership and technical skill to build stronger relationships with customers. This year's finalists are: HBO Max: Paris Summer Olympics Ibotta: Project Egg RappiCard: Legacy SoFi: Invest Milestones Wendy's: Fresh Picks - March Madness Collaborative Team of the Year This award celebrates teams that have successfully worked across different departments and disciplines to create best-in-class campaigns. The finalists are: Crunchyroll HBO Max Jump REA Group Sephora SoFi Creative Excellence This award honors teams that use the Braze platform to create innovative, original messaging, and unique customer experiences. Our finalists for the year are: ClassPass: Best of ClassPass HBO Max: Pre-finale IAM McDonald's: Unbagged RappiCard: Rosca SoFi: Money Moves Marketing Leader of the Year This award honors marketing executives who demonstrate excellence in leadership and customer engagement. The finalists for 2025 are: Jason Feldman, Senior Director, Customer Experience at BEES US Josh Hanson, Associate Director - Growth Marketing at Optus Sport Maria Bonello, Subscriber Engagement Director at MGM+, Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios Melissa Neikirk, Director of Lifecycle at Remitly Pedro Solís Cámara, Head of Growth at RappiCard Rising Marketing Star This award recognizes exceptional new users of the Braze platform who show great promise and use technology to support stronger customer relationships. The finalists are: Divyanshu Pandey, Associate, CRM at Chegg Ellie Ledwith, Sports Content Deputy Manager at bet365 Lindsey Spillman, Senior Specialist, CRM at Wendy's Maxim Radoczy, Lifecycle Marketing Lead, Engagement at Canva Nicholas Baltovski, Lifecycle Marketing Manager at Venmo Partner Awards 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. The finalists are: AKQA, for KFC Australia Dwarf, for Spenn (Norwegian and Strawberry hotels) Publicis Groupe, for McDonald's US VML, for Pizza Hut 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. Our 2025 finalists are: Marketing Decisions Merkle Stitch VML 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. The finalists are: AWS Contentsquare Segment Snowflake 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. Our finalists are: Deloitte Digital ANZ, for Foxtel Ragnarok, for Hand & Stone Stitch, for Taco Bell WillowTree, for Whitecastle 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. 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.Congratulations to the 2024 Torchie Award Winners & Runners Up!
We’re excited to announce the 2024 Torchie Award winners & runner ups, announced today at Forge 2024. The annual Braze Torchie Awards recognize extraordinary efforts in marketing by leaders in customer engagement. Campaign of the Year: ABC News Congratulations to ABC News for winning the 2024 Torchie Award for “Campaign of the Year.” Shoutout to the runners up for the Campaign of the Year Award: Whataburger Freeletics VGW Panera Bread Company Collaborative Team of the Year: Dutch Bros This year, we’re excited to name Dutch Bros as our 2024 Torchie Awards “Collaborative Team of the Year.” Dutch Bros drives success with their customer engagement program through seamless teamwork across five key departments: Digital marketing, development, product, consumer insights, and creative. Shout out to the runner ups for the Collaborative Team of the Year Award: Warner Bros Discovery (Max) Peacock GameChanger Fuji Television Network, Inc. Creative Excellence: Mint Mobile Talk about a partnership that’s “mint” to be! We’re pleased to name Mint Mobile as our 2024 “Creative Excellence Award” winner for their “Mint Mobile Shake” collaboration with Jack in the Box. The Mint Mobile Shake was created just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, bringing together joyful, stand-out messaging across in-store signage, TV commercials featuring the Jack in the Box mascot and Ryan Reynolds, social media, and an email campaign. The email campaign highlighted a dynamic promo code that honored a free Mint Mobile Shake to each Mint subscriber through the Jack in the Box app. Shout out to the runners up for the Creative Excellence Award: Burger King Brazil (Pmweb) RappiCard foodpanda McDonald’s Marketing Leader of the Year: Kanchan Lad, Papa Johns UK This year, we’re proud to present Kanchan Lad, Senior Product Manager of MarTech & Loyalty for Papa Johns UK, with our 2024 Torchie Awards “Marketing Leader of the Year” award. Kanchan championed the integration of Braze to address the limitations of Papa Johns’ existing CRM system, creating a “Local Marketing Hub” to empower franchisees of over 400+ Papa Johns stores. Shout out to the runners up for the Marketing Leader of the Year Award: Sina Zand - Activision Blizzard Pedro Solís Cámara Díaz - RappiCard Brigitte Barron - e.l.f. Cosmetics Rising Marketing Star: Casandra Lima, RappiCard We’re pleased to recognize Casandra Lima, lifecycle manager at RappiCard, as our 2024 “Rising Marketing Star of the Year” for her remarkable strategic leadership and outstanding contributions to the development of RappiCard’s brand relationships. Shout out to the runners up for the Rising Marketing Star Award: Natalia Buscaglia - Fox Corporation (shoutout Natalia ) Thomas Haug - FanDuel Rebecca Comisar - Revel Chandler Soto - Crumbl Bonfire Community Leader: David O’Reilly, Microsoft Clipchamp We’re honored to award DavidO , lifecycle marketing manager with Microsoft Clipchamp and long-time Braze power user, with our 2024 “Bonfire Community Leader” award. David’s commitment to the Bonfire community over the last year was unparalleled. Shout out to runners up for the Bonfire Community Leader Award: AllanHeoFNM - ForNow Marketing Manoj__ - AKQA inespais - SkyShowtime Braze for Social Impact: ShareTheMeal We’re proud to recognize ShareTheMeal as the winner of our “Braze for Social Impact” 2024 Torchie Award. ShareTheMeal is the fundraising app of the United Nations World Food Programme. The app used Braze's platform to recognize individual donors as “Field Heroes” and to raise further funds to fight hunger. This collaboration has raised millions of meals to help people in need, making a significant impact on communities worldwide. Shout out to runners up for the Braze for Social Impact Award: Delivery Hero Trainline Too Good To Go Partner Campaign of the Year: Stitch for e.l.f. Cosmetics Stitch’s creativity and prowess sets their campaigns apart, and we’re honored to award their team with the 2024 Torchie Awards “Partner Campaign of the Year” for their hard work. Stitch holds over 175 Braze certifications across their team of 80, leading to a world-class application of Braze capabilities. Nowhere is this success so visible than e.l.f. Cosmetics’ Beauty Squad loyalty program, boasting over 4.5 million members. Stitch engaged first-party data collection for the Beauty Squad program, spanning basic demographics to specific user product preferences, skin type, and reward redemption habits. Shout out to runners up for the Partner Campaign of the Year Award: Merkle for Burger King UK Armadillo for McDonald’s Publicis Canada for TurboTax Service Partner of the Year: VML As our most accredited services partner globally, boasting over 200 specialist certifications, there’s no question that VML is setting the standard for Braze usage and knowledge. That’s why we’re pleased to name VML the 2024 Torchie Awards “Service Partner of the Year.” VML’s team resides all over the globe—in Denmark, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Thailand, the UK, and the US—which makes them uniquely capable of providing global and regional solutions to the brands they serve. Some examples of their success this year include increasing time-to-value timelines for Wendy’s by 55% and driving a 10X efficiency gain for Klarna after simplifying their complex communication ecosystem of over 100+ journey paths. Shout out to the runners up for the Service Partner of the Year Award: Stitch PickAxe Ragnarok Technology Partner of the Year: AWS Congratulations to AWS, our 2024 Torchie Awards “Technology Partner of the Year.” For over a decade, our partnership with AWS has provided the robust cloud infrastructure that powers key components of the Braze platform, enabling us to deliver seamless and reliable experiences to customers worldwide. Our native integrations with AWS, including Braze Currents, Amazon Personalize, and Cloud Data Ingestion, are utilized by hundreds of customers to enhance data-driven insights and save valuable engineering time. Shout out to the runners up for the Technology Partner of the Year Award: Moveable Ink Branch Twilio Segment Meta Transformation Partner of the Year: CACI for easyJet This year, we recognize CACI as our Torchie Awards 2024 “Transformation Partner of the Year” for their powerful reimagination of easyJet’s communications framework through Braze. To meet their client’s goal of becoming Europe’s most beloved airline, CACI streamlined easyJet’s communication infrastructure by pivoting to Braze as the chosen solution for a cohesive messaging platform. The transfer took place in record time—only four months—and met 100% success for IP Warming in all domains and markets. This transformation was key to improving operational efficiency and enhancing the easyJet customer journey. Shout out to the runners up for the Transformation Partner of the Year Award: VML for Wendy’s Pmweb for Burger King Mexico Massive Rocket for Papa Johns We celebrate all of the winners and runner ups this year. Read more about the winners here.December Marketer of the Month
Maximilian Grabowski is our December Marketer of the Month! Max is a Supply CRM Manager at FREE NOW and we sincerely appreciate his ongoing contributions to the Braze Bonfire community. Whether it’s sharing his coolest campaigns or helping out a fellow Braze user, Bonfire wouldn’t be the same without him. Congratulations, Maximilian!January Marketer of the Month
Celebrating our January Marketer of the Month, Voula Dimitrak, Product Owner, Braze at Sky! Voula's innovative use of marketing technology, especially her successful implementation of Braze Connected Content, has led to a significant boost in subscriber retention and viewership at Sky. Her dedication to personalization and real-time engagement truly sets her apart. Discover more about vouladimitrak's remarkable contributions in the blog post here. Congratulations, Voula! 🏆August Marketer of the Month
We're excited to announce that our August Marketer of the Month is ilana-fromm , Director of Marketing, Lifecycle and Email at Little Spoon. Her efforts in developing a streamlined lifecycle marketing strategy and her focus on customer retention have been instrumental in shaping the future of Little Spoon. Please join us in celebrating Ilana's achievements and dedication to innovation in customer engagement! Read more of her career journey here.May Marketer of the Month
Our May Marketer of the Month is Sean Collins, VP, Growth Marketing at Bilt Rewards! Sean has been an integral part of the Braze Bonfire Community - from speaking at FORGE ‘22, participating in an SMS + Email webinar, to sitting down for a Bonfire Firesides. We are excited to honor Sean this month, not only for his contributions to Bonfire, but also his pivotal role in Bilt Rewards’ continued growth and success. Thank you for being a great pillar of our community, Sean! Congratulations!
