The 2026 Cairns Crocodiles Awards has launched, celebrating the pinnacle of creativity across the Asia-Pacific region.
Now in its third year, the Crocodiles Awards commemorates every aspect of the creative process, from the craft to strategy to high quality execution across channels and industry verticals.
The 2025 Cairns Crocodiles Awards saw a record number of entries from across the region with world-class agencies and clients including McDonald’s, Mars, KFC, Coca-Cola, UNICEF, Asahi, Grey Thailand, Akcelo, OMD, Droga5, Howatson+Company and Thinkerbell picking up silverware.
Due to popular demand, this year’s Cairns Crocodiles Awards program has expanded with eight new categories that celebrate innovation and regional excellence.
They are: AI Craft, AI Innovation, Automotive, Retail Media, ANZ Campaign of the Year, East Asia Campaign of the Year, South Asia Campaign of the Year and Southeast Asia Campaign of the Year.
Get snappy and enter the 2026 Cairns Crocodiles Awards!
AI Craft
This category recognises the growing importance that AI technology is playing in advertising. This category celebrates the finest work that is crafted by using AI tools.
AI Innovation Campaign
This category recognises industry leading AI innovation that is used to power impactful and effective campaigns. This could be the use of AI to deliver strategic insights, audience curation, personalisation, media channel optimisation and other parts of the creative process that drive impact.
Automotive
This category celebrates campaigns related to the automotive sector. There has been notable creative work across the region in an industry that has traditionally been formulaic. It’s time to pay tribute to category shaping work.
Retail Media Campaign
This category celebrates the most innovative and effective campaigns that leverage digital and physical retail media networks, one of the fastest growing marketing channels in the Asia-Pacific region.
Regional Campaign Of The Year Awards: ANZ, East Asia, South Asia & Southeast Asia
Due to the rapidly growing number of entries from across the APAC region, the Cairns Crocodiles will celebrate the finest work from each of these four regions.
Another important addition to this year’s Cairns Crocodiles Awards is that wins in the Media Crocodile category also count towards an agencies’ RECMA scores.
Check out all of the 2025 Cairns Crocodiles winners!
Entries open today and will run until Tuesday, 24 March 2026. Finalists will be announced mid-April with live judging taking place in Cairns on 11 May 2026.
Make sure your brand and agency enters the 2026 Cairns Crocodiles awards to stand out from the pack.
