Swype® Named Finalist at the European Paid Media Awards 2026
Swype® has been named a finalist at the European Paid Media Awards 2026 for Charity / Not-for-Profit Campaign of the Year, recognising our ongoing paid media work with Foster4.
The European Paid Media Awards recognise paid media campaigns, strategies and teams from across Europe, covering paid search, paid social, data, lead generation and integrated campaigns.
Our Foster4 campaign has been shortlisted alongside work from agencies and organisations across Europe, following its recognition earlier this year at the UK Paid Media Awards 2026.
A unified approach to foster carer recruitment
Foster4 brings together nine local authorities across Cheshire and Merseyside with a shared objective: to recruit more foster carers for their local communities.
It presents a complex marketing challenge.
Different areas have different audiences, demographics and recruitment needs. At the same time, the campaign needs to communicate a consistent message around fostering and address the questions and barriers that can prevent people from taking the next step.
Our approach brought this activity together under one performance-led strategy.
Rather than treating each channel or local authority in isolation, the campaign combines audience insight, creative, paid search, paid social and data across the full recruitment journey.
This allows us to build awareness with people who may only be starting to consider fostering, while capturing existing demand from those actively researching how to become a foster carer.
Recognised by the European Paid Media Awards judges
The judges highlighted several areas of the campaign, including its structure, targeting, use of data and ability to communicate a complex social issue.
One judge described it as:
“Strong and well-structured approach to a complex social challenge. Clear audience targeting, effective use of data, and a multi-channel strategy.”
Another highlighted the human side of the work:
“This tells a very human story and did so to the people that needed to hear it.”
The campaign was also recognised for having clear objectives and audience segmentation, alongside the way challenges, actions and outcomes were presented throughout the work.
That feedback is particularly important to us.
Foster carer recruitment cannot be approached like a standard lead generation campaign. Behind every enquiry is someone considering a significant change to their life, and potentially the life of a child or young person.
The strategy therefore has to balance performance with clear, relevant and human communication.
Recognition at both UK and European level
The European shortlist follows our nomination for Charity / Not-for-Profit Campaign of the Year at the UK Paid Media Awards 2026, where the same Foster4 campaign was recognised alongside national charity and not-for-profit campaigns.
In the UK awards, judges described the work as a “strategically mature and operationally impressive campaign”.
You can read more about that recognition and the thinking behind the campaign in our UK Paid Media Awards 2026 finalist article.
Having the work recognised at both UK and European level is a strong reflection of the strategy and ongoing work behind the campaign.
But more importantly, it recognises a campaign built around an important objective, helping local authorities reach more people who could provide safe and supportive homes for children and young people who need them.
