Arts University Bournemouth (AUB)’s Brand, Marketing and Future Students team were highly commended for In-House Team of the Year at the 2026 Social Media Marketing Awards (SMMAs).
Hosted by SocialDay, the UK's leading resource for social media professionals, the SMMAs ‘celebrate excellence and innovation in social media marketing across the industry’, with the In-House Team of the Year category recognising ‘teams that have driven strong results for their organisation and changed how the wider business thinks about social’.
AUB’s highly commended entry was built around the team’s delivery of the university’s new visual identity, brand and strategy launched in the spring, taking a social-first approach and showcasing creative excellence from its community of students, staff and alumni.
At the heart of this was 2026 BA (Hons) Photography graduate Tom Liggett’s pioneering artistic practice where photographic film was sent into the earth’s atmosphere via weather balloon to be exposed by cosmic radiation rather than light.
Working in partnership with Tom, AUB’s in-house team sent the new logo into space where it was seen by over 42 million people when it was featured in various media outlets, including a national spotlight on BBC Breakfast on 4 May 2026.
The award success follows a recent webinar from SocialDay, hosted by AUB’s Senior Content Officer and BA (Hons) Photography alumnus Harry Davenport, exploring the successful launches, titled ‘How AUB put a new logo in space (and got 42.6 million views)’.
Harry says, “We’ve come a long way in the last year and it’s an honour to see AUB’s social media activity recognised outside of the Higher Education sector, standing out amongst fierce competition and impressing judges from the likes of Intuit, LinkedIn, and Howden.”
The overall winner in the In-House Team of the Year category was Fortnum and Mason (F&M), whose entry the judges described as “a brilliant example of a heritage brand behaving like a social brand”.
You can view the full list of winners, highly commended and finalists on the SocialDay website.
