Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 19.05.2026 
Social Folk Wins Best New Business Campaign at the Global Agency Awards 2026.
After taking home the award for Best New Business Campaign at the European Agency Awards 2025, less than 6 months later they’ve officially also won at the Global Agency Awards 2026. Cementing the agency’s position as one of the UK’s leading content and creator marketing agencies.
The win recognises Social Folk’s launch campaign for CANS, a European sparkling water brand that entered the UK market in 2025 with zero awareness and quickly became one of the most talked about challenger brands online.
Within months of launch, the campaign helped drive retail listings in Harrods and WHSmith, while generating mass awareness across social media through a combination of creator partnerships, influencer gifting and reactive cultural content.
For founder Hannah Saycell and the Social Folk team, the back-to-back wins represent more than just awards. They reflect a wider shift happening across the marketing industry, where creator-led campaigns, social-first thinking, and fast-moving reactive content are now driving genuine commercial impact.
Social Folk is a London-based creator marketing agency that specialises in influencer gifting, UGC, end-to-end creator campaigns and social strategy, for brands looking to grow culturally and commercially.
Working with the likes of British Airways, Häagen-Dazs, Range Rover, Revlon, Adobe and Old El Paso to build campaigns designed for modern consumer behaviour.
The CANS campaign was built around a simple challenge:
How do you launch a completely unknown drinks brand into one of the UK’s most saturated FMCG categories without massive sponsorship budgets?
The answer was an “always-on” creator ecosystem designed to make the brand impossible to ignore online.
Social Folk identified three key audience groups and built out personas:
• Gen Z trendsetters driving discovery through TikTok
• Wellness-focused parents looking for healthier alternatives
• Urban professionals wanting premium, design-led products
Using these insights, the agency created a multi-layered strategy combining influencer gifting, paid creator campaigns, reactive content, UGC, community building, and cultural activations designed to embed CANS naturally into conversation.
One of the campaign’s strongest drivers was influencer gifting and creator seeding. Social Folk gifted over 180 creators across lifestyle, wellness, fitness, and family verticals using a highly curated, data-backed selection strategy. Each creator received premium bespoke PR boxes featuring personalised touches, creative personalised gifts, and handwritten notes to encourage authentic content creation.
The result was a 65.5% organic post rate, more than double the UK industry average for gifting campaigns at 20%-30%.
The campaign quickly evolved into what became known internally as the “CANS Friends” creator community, helping the brand establish trust and visibility at speed.
Social Folk’s team used the insights gathered during the gifting phase to inform a wider paid creator partnership strategy across TikTok and Instagram.
They identified and partnered with creators in the targeted data sectors. Sourcing them using their in-house framework & AI vetting tools to make sure the brand only landed in safe, engaged communities that actually cared. Ensuring the brand’s values & the creator’s voice synced. They owned the whole process end-to-end, from campaign ideation and briefing to the chaos of creator management. Social folks creators then produced brilliant, binge-worthy content that people actually wanted to watch.
Their bespoke framework leverages communities that don’t just buy, but advocates for brands they work with. Building real relationships with every creator to ensure the CANS product wasn’t just shared, it was actually celebrated.
Sourcing marathon runners, wellness influencers, family creators, and corporate lifestyle influencers to position and embed CANS around healthier routines, culture, and modern lifestyle habits.
Content ranged from placing the brand in genuine marathon training diaries and taste tests to day-in-the-life content alongside reactive social storytelling.
The campaign’s cultural activities became a defining part of the work.
Around the London Marathon, Social Folk identified an opportunity to insert the brand into conversations around hydration, energy, and wellness without relying on official sponsorship access.
The team filmed, edited, and distributed reactive content within 24 hours, creating social-first storytelling that felt native to TikTok and Instagram while going viral it also remained fully compliant with event regulations.
Judges at the Global Agency Awards praised the campaign’s strategic depth, creator execution, and ability to generate cultural relevance without relying on huge sponsorship budgets.
With judges commenting:
“The data behind the campaign is compelling, with persona targeting adding genuine depth, and an influencer gifting posting rate far exceeding typical industry benchmarks, driven by excellent creator selection and standout physical PR assets. The ability to join the London Marathon conversation without official sponsorship through reactive, on-brand content within 24 hours is a masterclass in newsjacking.”
That ability to move quickly, understand culture, and execute in real time became one of the biggest differentiators in the campaign’s success.
The work didn’t just generate viral views. It generated commercial traction.
Within months, CANS evolved from an unknown European drinks brand into a recognised challenger product with growing retail demand and national visibility. This supported fast retail listings in Harrods and WHSmith.
Adam Horler, Managing Director of CANS UK, commented:
“Entering a new market is tough. Entering a new market in a highly competitive category is even tougher. Hannah and her team brought CANS to the attention of our target audience in record time. Consumers were already telling us they’d seen the brand on social media before trying it in real life.”
For Social Folk, the Global Agency Award win builds on what has already been a huge year for the agency.
Following recognition at both the European Agency Awards late 2025 and now the Global Agency Awards 2026, this builds on the momentum and reflects the impact of the campaign on a wider stage. Social Folk continues to build a reputation for campaigns that blend strategy, creativity, innovative creator partnerships, and measurable business impact.
Hannah Saycell, Founder & CEO of Social Folk, said:
“Winning once was incredible. Winning two huge awards, honestly, is a dream. We were up against some very well-known, big brands and agencies for these awards, so I am genuinely over the moon and just so proud of our team.
We are incredibly lucky to work with clients who trust us to push boundaries and share our passion for doing things differently. The landscape has completely shifted. Brands need to understand culture, creators, community, and how people actually consume content now. This campaign worked because it was data driven but also felt native to social media. And ultimately, it drove actual business results, which is always the goal.”
As creator marketing and social-first campaigns continue evolving, the agency believes brands that win will be the ones capable of balancing entertainment, strategy, speed, and authenticity.
And for Social Folk, that’s exactly the space they intend to keep leading.
About Social Folk
Social Folk is a global award-winning influencer marketing and gifting agency. Recognised as one of the UK’s leading creator agencies.
They plug brands into niche communities, and deliver bags of binge-worthy content that doesn’t just get seen, it gets celebrated by the people who actually care.
