The Evening
Award Order & Presenters
Every row shows two times. Backstage is when you need to be in the holding area — stage left, behind the walls, the side by the cocktail hour bars, marked on the plan at the bottom of this page. A runner meets you there with the trophy and your card. On stage is when you actually walk on, fifteen minutes later.
Your Script
- What the category is for, in one line.
- Why it is hard to win.
- One line acknowledging the three finalists.
- The same handoff: "The Golden Cart for [category] goes to..."
These are a starting draft. Make it sound like you, keep the shape, and keep it to thirty seconds. Do not add the nominees, the recorded announcement has already read them. Do not read the winner name from here, it is on the card handed to you at the lectern.
There is no harder room than a feed. It owes you nothing, it gives you about a second, and it forgets you instantly. Best Ad Campaign is for the work that beat that, and then went on to actually sell something. Three very different answers to the same impossible brief. The Golden Cart for Best Ad Campaign goes to...
Nobody wins Customer First on a good week. You win it on the worst day of your year, when something breaks and a real person is waiting. This award is for the team that treats support and experience as the product, not the cleanup. All three built something that holds under pressure. The Golden Cart for Customer First goes to...
The biggest stack does not win this one. Best Use of Technology goes to the leader whose choices you can actually feel, in what the customer gets and what the business earns. Tools are easy to buy. An advantage is not. Each of tonight's three built something a competitor cannot simply go and purchase. The Golden Cart for Best Use of Technology goes to...
You know inside a week. Some partners send a status deck, and some answer on a Saturday and tell you when you are wrong. Extension of the Team is for the second kind, the vendor or agency that worked like they were on your payroll. Every one of tonight's three earned that from a client with every other option. The Golden Cart for Extension of the Team goes to...
You cannot buy this one. Customer Community is for the brand people actually want to belong to, the creators and affiliates and superfans who turn up without being paid. It is earned slowly, and it disappears fast if you treat it as a channel. Tonight's three have rooms full of people who chose them. The Golden Cart for Customer Community goes to...
“I told you so.” That's what everyone in this category got to say, maybe only in their inside voice, to people who originally thought their ideas were a sign of cranial-rectal reorientation syndrome. Whether the idea was in site, digital experience, AEO and GEO, or product, it goes to whoever pushed it through, made it happen, and proved that risk isn't risky... when you're right. The Golden Cart for Best Innovator goes to...
Everyone here has sat through the demo. Best Use of AI is for the far shorter list of teams who put it into production and can tell you exactly what changed. Not a pilot, not a slide. An edge you can measure. Three of them did that this year. The Golden Cart for Best Use of AI goes to...
Follower count is not what this measures. The Signal goes to the voice that shapes how the industry actually thinks, on stage or in the feed. It is the person whose take you go looking for, whose post changes what you do on Monday. Three people moved the conversation this year. The Golden Cart for The Signal goes to...
Retention is where the margin quietly lives. Best Integrated CRM is for the best email, retention and loyalty engine in the business, the one where customers stay and spend more. It is the hardest thing on this list to fake, because the numbers either compound or they do not. Tonight's three compound. The Golden Cart for Best Integrated CRM goes to...
Anyone can buy revenue with a promotion. Margin Maker is for growing order value and margin together, without discounting. Premium offers, bundles, upsells, the patient unglamorous work. It is the skill that keeps a brand alive long after a growth number stops flattering it. Three teams did it the hard way. The Golden Cart for Margin Maker goes to...
One brand, wherever the customer finds it. Omnichannel MVP sounds like the most obvious idea in retail and it is one of the most brutal to deliver, because every system and every team has to agree. Same experience, same inventory, same promise, online and in store. Tonight's three made that look effortless. The Golden Cart for Omnichannel MVP goes to...
Being in eCom, we all go to a lot of events and that gives us the right to judge them. The Best Industry Event award is for the one that was genuinely worth the flight. The one you left with an idea you are still using. Three cleared that bar this year. The Golden Cart for Best Industry Event goes to...
This is the only award tonight no single person can win. The Full Cart is Team of the Year, for the in house group that does the whole job together, covering for each other on the weeks nobody sees. Not one brilliant hire and not one good quarter. If you have built a team like that, you know how rare it is. The Golden Cart for The Full Cart goes to...
What an incredible night, congratulations to all our winners so far! Now, it's time for the big one. Quick heads up to tonight's winner: our trophy might not be 24-karat gold, but it's definitely worthy of the prime spot on your mantel right next to your Golden Globes. Every award tonight recognized excellence in one specific area. This one is for absolute mastery across the board. Selected from the entire field, it's the highest honor of the night. The Golden Cart goes to...
If You Are Presenting
- Wait for the recording to finish before you walk. A recorded announcement names the award, introduces you by name, then reads all three nominees. Do not move until it has read the last nominee. Walking early puts you on stage talking over your own introduction. The runner will cue you.
- You do not read the nominees. The recording has already done it. One exception: award 01. There is no recording. Colleen introduces the award, Alice Kim and the nominees live from the lectern, so Alice walks on her hand-off, not on a recording.
- One line and a name. Something short about the category in your own words, then read the winner. Your card is on the lectern.
- You walk the winner off. They get forty-five seconds. When the music comes up, shake their hand and lead them off.
- Exit stage right, together. You and the winner come off stage right and stop at the step and repeat for a quick shot. Seconds, but do not walk past it. There is no backdrop this year, the step and repeat is the photo.
- Your call time is in the list above — fifteen minutes before you present. It is yours alone, so you are not standing around.
- Hold stage left, behind the walls. That is the side by the cocktail hour bars. A runner meets you there with your trophy and your card. Marked on the plan below.
Hold stage left, exit stage right. You wait behind the walls on the cocktail-bar side, walk on when the recorded announcement starts, and leave with the winner on the opposite side, where the step and repeat sits for the rest of the night. It works the head of the carpet during arrivals, then moves there.