At SheerID, our mission is to help brands move beyond basic segmentation to build loyal relationships with their key audiences. Every day, we see our clients doing remarkable work—creating programs that don’t just drive transactions, but forge genuine connections that turn their customers into lifelong brand advocates.
That’s why we created the SheerID Customer Awards. We wanted to shine a spotlight on the brands and marketers who are raising the bar for the entire industry. These 2025 winners are the North Stars of modern marketing, proving that when purpose and innovation collide, brands can achieve incredible business results while making a meaningful impact on their communities.
How Award Winners Were Chosen
SheerID’s panel of judges reviewed nominations across five categories, looking for brands that exemplified originality, measurable impact, and an “above and beyond” commitment to their audiences. These winners were chosen because they didn’t just follow a playbook—they wrote a new one.
Visionary Award
Honoring a brand that leverages originality and creativity to flawlessly execute an innovative audience verification strategy that delivers measurable impact.
Winner: Uber
Uber transformed a standard student offer into an Emmy-winning cultural moment with its Brian Cox Goes to College campaign. By tapping into the authentic, humorous tone students crave, Uber saw brand awareness surge by 7% in the US and 15% in Canada while significantly surpassing acquisition targets.
Runner Up: Sleep Number
Sleep Number expanded its military support from seasonal pulse offers to a permanent, year-round program. Promoting the offer through high-value channels, including prominent placement during three NFL “Salute to Service,” games, delivered strategic and commercial success.
Community Champion
Celebrating a brand whose unparalleled commitment to an audience it verified made a real-word impact.
Winner: Intuit
Intuit’s Food Truck Program provides high school students with hands-on entrepreneurial training, grants, and professional tools like QuickBooks and Mailchimp. The program fits squarely into “Intuit for Education,” a free, financial literacy program for high school and college students. By measuring success in “lives changed” rather than just conversions, Intuit is on track to serve 50 million students by 2030.
Runner Up: Military Family Advisory Network (MFAN)
MFAN delivered rapid emergency grocery support to military families during the government shutdown, leveraging SheerID’s Audience Network to verify more than 50,000 military families in just 72 hours, ensuring the food boxes reached only the families they were intended for.
Loyalty Leader
Celebrating a brand that excels at building enduring audience loyalty by creating exceptional customer experiences across all channels.
Winner: Ulta Beauty
Ulta Beauty redefined student loyalty by integrating its student program into its Ulta Beauty Rewards program and promoting it through immersive campus events like its “College Glow Up Tour.” Ulta’s Homecoming Gift with Purchase campaign blew up TikTok, with several posts generating one million views and one post driving nearly 4.5 million views.
Runner Up: Steve Madden
Steve Madden empowered campus ambassadors as micro-influencers. Ambassadors drove sales through authentic TikTok and Instagram stories that included unique referral links. The campaign delivered double-digit growth in month-over-month and year-over year student verifications.
She Leads the Way
Honoring a visionary woman who drives ecommerce excellence through the successful implementation of a SheerID-driven initiative.
Winner: Imke Rodermans, DPG Media
Imke led the “Student Free” initiative at DPG Media, giving students across the Netherlands and Belgium free access to quality journalism. Her proactive leadership and savvy integration of DPG’s channels with a national PR push ensured the offer gained immediate traction across every touchpoint. Her dedication to DPG’s socially responsible mission repositioned the company as a modern, accessible brand for the next generation.
Runner Up: Chelsea Amaro, Peacock
Chelsea’s launch of Peacock’s program for healthcare workers brilliantly leveraged the company’s mockumentary St. Denis Medical as a high-value touchpoint. Her precisely targeted campaign with personalized messaging to healthcare workers drove rapid conversions.
Campaign Excellence
Celebrating outstanding creative campaigns that leverage verification data to achieve exceptional business outcomes.
Winner: Harvard Business Publishing (HBP)
HBP gives educators free access to its extensive case study library, but manually verifying them was costly and resource intensive. The company turned this bottleneck into a strategic asset by seamlessly migrating legacy users to a streamlined SheerID flow and using verification data to clean up sales reporting. The initiative was a masterclass in change management that protected HBP’s academic integrity while simultaneously accelerating business growth.
Runner Up: SoundCloud
When SoundCloud wanted to promote their Fan and Creator plans to students, they correlated SheerID verification data with student brand engagement to determine which schools to target and how to create exciting on-campus ambassador programs. The initiative demonstrated how merging digital insights with on-the-ground execution can help build a lasting brand community.
Get the Full Story
These summaries are just the beginning. To dive deeper into the strategies, creative assets, and data-driven insights behind these award-winning programs, read our 2025 SheerID Customer Awards ebook.
Want to create personalized rewards that drive customer acquisition and loyalty? With SheerID’s Audience Data Platform, you can precisely target hundreds of global audiences and collect verified, permissioned data you can stream to 400+ martech platforms for hyper-personalized re-engagement. See pricing designed to fit your business.