DPWK | A critical review: German Prize for Business Communication 2026 – Why the nomination is often just an expensive illusion

Award inflation in marketing: Is participation in the German Prize for Business Communication (DPWK) worthwhile?

When students evaluate multi-million dollar campaigns: The major weaknesses in the DPWK system

The German Prize for Business Communication (DPWK) has been a fixture in the German-speaking PR and marketing landscape for over two decades. Launched as a student project and now firmly established under the umbrella of the Berlin University of Applied Sciences and Economics (HTW Berlin), the award boasts a lofty standard: scientific rigor, independent judging, and absolute freedom from lobbying. Those honored with the "Golden Spark" should owe their success not to their budget or industry connections, but solely to their outstanding strategic and creative achievement.

The term "Golden Spark" is a rhetorical metaphor used in this analysis, not an official title of the prize. The German Prize for Business Communication (DPWK) is not awarded under the name "Golden Spark," and there is no official trophy bearing this name. The expression was used to give the analysis a more figurative, journalistically accessible tone. "Spark" represents the igniting moment of a successful communication campaign, the impulse that jumps between sender and receiver, while "golden" alludes to the distinction, the prize-like nature, and the economic value creation behind the award-winning achievements. It is therefore a literary device, not an established technical term.

But does the prize live up to its theoretical promise in practice? A detailed analysis reveals that behind the glamorous award ceremony lies a complex and sometimes contradictory system. From highly personalized recruitment emails that falsely suggest an exclusive nomination, to the structural limitations of a student jury, to the unavoidable economic pressure to secure the budget for the gala through registration fees – the DPWK oscillates dangerously between academic treatise and lucrative industry ritual.

The following article takes an unvarnished yet constructive look at the mechanisms of the award. It deconstructs the tension arising from a lack of transparency, unclear criteria, and the industry's pervasive award inflation. It is not a simple settling of accounts, but rather an essential assessment of an ambivalent metric – and an examination of how much significance this award truly holds today.

Why a student award oscillates between academic seriousness, industry ritual and structural conflict of interest – an assessment of an ambivalent yardstick

"In the case of the DPWK, which explicitly distances itself from purely commercial awards and claims science-based freedom from lobbying, this contradiction weighs more heavily than in formats that do not make any academic claims."

The German Prize for Business Communication, or DPWK for short, enjoys a reputation in the German-speaking communications industry that oscillates between academic rigor and time-honored industry tradition. Awarded annually in Berlin since 2001, the Berlin University of Applied Sciences and Economics (HTW Berlin) has been the legal and commercial sponsor of the prize since 2023. Founded in 2000 by eleven students, it has since become a fixture on the German awards calendar. This very combination of student sponsorship, academic ties, and commercial integration within the industry's economics makes the prize an object that warrants nuanced critique.

This critical assessment is not intended as a settling of scores, but rather as an attempt at a nuanced classification. The DPWK is neither a mere marketing tool of HTW Berlin nor a purely academic format for reflection, neither a commercial trophy machine nor an unassailable gold standard. It is a hybrid entity with specific strengths and equally specific weaknesses, occupying a niche within the industry that lies between the major commercial creative competitions, the classic PR awards, and purely scientific communication prizes. Anyone who wants to seriously assess the prize must consider it precisely within this field of tension.

The structural ambivalence of a student jury

The first and arguably most serious criticism concerns the jury structure. The evaluation of submitted campaigns takes place in two stages. In the first stage, approximately twenty students from the Bachelor's and Master's programs in Business Communication, as well as related programs at HTW, review the submissions and evaluate them based on fifteen individual criteria. In a second stage, these evaluations are discussed with a panel of experts comprised of professors and communication specialists, most of whom are alumni of the program. Officially, this structure is presented as a guarantee of independence, freedom from lobbying, and relevance to current trends.

The methodology is indeed ambivalent. On the one hand, students bring a refreshing open-mindedness. They are neither bound by agency relationships nor affected by the reciprocal pressure of a closed industry scene where jurors pass on commissions, pitches, and future awards to one another. On the other hand, they naturally lack the practical experience to distinguish between a well-presented case study and a truly strategically effective communication effort. A student jury reading an impact analysis for the first time can hardly assess whether the presented reach and conversion data is plausible, biased, or contextualized. Campaigns that are easy to present thus have a structural advantage over campaigns that employ more complex mechanisms of action but are less suited to the stage.

The expert jury is meant to compensate for this weakness, but its composition is itself not free from conflicts of interest. When alumni of the HTW's Business Communication program, who now work in agencies, companies, and associations, judge submissions intended to award prizes to precisely these agencies, companies, and associations, an informal network of self-referentiality emerges. The official assurance of freedom from lobbying is thus less a structural safeguard than a normative promise whose observance is difficult to verify externally.

The economic Achilles heel of the acquisition model

The second point of criticism concerns the financing structure. The DPWK's annual budget is approximately €130,000 and comes primarily from the registration fees of participating companies. This money is used almost exclusively for the awards ceremony. At the same time, the students contact up to 1,200 companies to solicit submissions. This model has three problematic implications.

First, there is a systemic incentive to generate as many submissions as possible. The more companies that pay, the larger the budget, the more glamorous the gala. Students thus become not only jury members but also sales, marketing, and sponsorship acquisition all rolled into one. This dual role may be pedagogically valuable, but it is methodologically precarious. Those who need to generate revenue are rarely inclined to rigorously filter submissions or reject inconvenient campaigns. The criticism leveled at the German Sustainability Award for years—for example, by Weleda CEO Tina Müller, who publicly rejected the award, and by Alicia Lindner of Börlind, who tore up the certificate—targets precisely this mechanism: lack of transparency, unclear selection processes, contradictory evaluation, and commercialization. The DPWK (German Project Management Association) has not yet been the target of comparable fundamental public criticism, but its structural vulnerability is conceptually similar.

Secondly, companies that don't submit an application are, by definition, not eligible to win. The award's significance is therefore limited to that subset of the German business landscape that pays the registration fee, invests time in the application materials, and takes the risk of undergoing external evaluation. Large, self-assured companies with their own communications departments, or those that generally forgo industry awards, are thus underrepresented. The pool of award winners is therefore not a sample of the best communication achievements in Germany, but rather a sample of the best communication achievements among the companies that do apply.

Thirdly, the relationship between the entry fee and the chance of winning is a sensitive issue. The higher the number of entries in individual categories, the more the competition resembles a lottery, in which companies with large communication budgets have a structural advantage through professionally prepared submissions. Smaller companies that don't have agency support in writing their entries are disadvantaged. The official narrative that creativity and impact are more important than budget masks this asymmetrical logic of the submission process.

The acquisition process put to the test: When sales buzzwords meet scientific standards

The structural criticism of the prize's funding model can be seen particularly clearly in the way the student organizing team contacts potential participants beforehand. Companies that receive a personalized invitation to submit their work are confronted with rhetoric that deliberately blurs the lines between a neutral invitation and a professional pre-selection process. These acquisition letters, for example, attest to the fact that the contacted companies' specific campaigns fit exceptionally well into a particular category and have genuine potential to shine within it. The letters elaborate on the company's working methods, highlighting measurable successes against the general market trend or the fulfillment of high quality standards that clearly distinguish them from superficial mass-produced goods.

Such a highly personalized and laudatory approach inevitably leads to the assumption that a substantial preliminary review has already taken place. In their outreach, the students aggressively emphasize the credibility of the Berlin University of Applied Sciences and Economics, highlighting the scientifically grounded criteria and the independent, fresh perspective of the student jury. However, when this academic aura is combined with sales-optimized buzzwords, recipients are left with an overwhelmingly positive impression of their own chances of winning. The impression is created that the company has already been nominated and simply needs to go through the formal process. The fact that this is, in reality, a purely sales-driven acquisition process, in which hundreds of companies are contacted in a wide-ranging manner to even build a pool of participants, remains hidden in the tone of the approach. This method demonstrates less academic detachment than a marketing-driven sales logic that is diametrically opposed to the self-proclaimed commitment to integrity.

The economic dimension of the selection system and the architecture of the participation fees

The full extent of this sales logic becomes clear when one calculates the economic mechanics behind the pricing process. The organizing team contacts up to 1,200 companies in advance. Even if one conservatively estimates that only 300 companies from this extensive network actually decide to participate, a regular entry fee of €599 would already generate revenue of nearly €180,000 just for formal admission to the competition. However, this sum represents only the starting point. Those companies that make it to the final nomination stage, typically five finalists in seven different categories, must then pay an additional final fee. At a fee of €2,499 per nominated company, this second stage generates further revenue of approximately €87,000.

This financial structure creates immense structural pressure to keep the number of participants as large as possible in order to cover the costs of the elaborate gala event and its organization. When the German Prize for Business Communication officially extends its submission deadlines, as it did for the 2026 edition, it reveals a great deal from an economic perspective. Such extensions are a classic indicator in the awards industry that the internal targets for submissions, and thus the required budget, have not yet been met. Consequently, more companies need to be contacted and persuaded to participate. A system so heavily reliant on the quantity of paying entrants is inevitably suspected of prioritizing profitability over rigorous scientific criteria in its selection and acquisition processes.

Against this backdrop, a sobering conclusion emerges: those who receive a personalized invitation from the organizing team were not contacted solely because their communication efforts had stood out in a scientifically based pre-selection process, but also because the prize requires submissions, submissions generate fees, and fees finance the gala. The flattering approach is therefore not only an expression of genuine enthusiasm for a campaign, but also a tool for revenue generation.

The paradox of big names: borrowing reputation instead of transparent case studies

This economic pressure also explains another phenomenon that becomes apparent upon closer examination of the award's external communication. To position the award in the market as a high-quality seal of approval, the organizer makes use of industry-standard reputation-borrowing. They conspicuously and frequently advertise with large, internationally renowned brand names that have been among the winners or nominees in recent years. Companies like Carl Zeiss, Kellogg, Vorwerk, and Coca-Cola grace the lists of current and historical shortlists. The prestige of these global corporations is intended to rub off on the award and suggest to potential new customers from the SME sector that, should they participate, they would be in the best social and economic company.

The prize's academic aspirations clash painfully with the reality of its own documentation. Anyone attending the event, whether as a trade professional or an interested agency, looking for the supposedly outstanding and thoroughly analyzed corporate communications achievements of these companies to learn from their best practices will be disappointed. The detailed case studies, the methodological reasoning of the student jury, and the specific reasons why these particular campaigns were rated as excellent according to the strict criteria are generally nowhere to be found. The big names serve less as documented and transparent case studies of good communication and more as figureheads for the prize's own marketing. The impression arises that the presence of a well-known brand is often more valuable to the prize organizer than the publication of a sound, academic evaluation of the underlying communication work.

The standardization of rejection: Lack of evidence and the transformation into a marketing tool

The most glaring contradiction between the prize's academic self-image and its actual procedural reality is revealed in the communication of rejections. Companies that accepted the initially enthusiastic invitation, paid the entry fee, and invested resources in preparing their campaign legitimately expect a comprehensible, criteria-based explanation in the event of rejection. This is all the more true for a prize that explicitly promotes its scientific methodology. However, the reality of rejection communication is strikingly reminiscent of standardized human resources platitudes. Rejected applicants are informed in a general way that the waiting is over and that the jury has reached a decision after careful consideration. This is followed by expressions of regret at not being nominated and the obligatory assurance that the quality of the work deserves high praise and has significantly contributed to the competition's excellence.

These standardized rejection letters simply lack a factual, well-founded explanation of exactly why the campaign failed in comparison to the much-vaunted criteria. For a starting fee in the mid-three-figure range, a brief, analytical feedback from the student jury would be the very least an applicant could reasonably expect. Instead, the rejection seamlessly transitions into PR-optimized self-promotion. The rejected companies are immediately invited in the same letter to participate in events such as a meeting with young talent directly on the university campus to discuss issues or present their own organization.

This communicative turn of events definitively demotes the rejected participant from a candidate in an academic competition to a potential lead for the university's network and employer branding. The fact that the final sentence of the rejection letter expresses the hope that the company will reapply next year, at a cost, completes the picture. It is this combination of initial enthusiasm during the recruitment process, an opaque, high-priced selection process focused on major brands, and a rejection without feedback, repackaged as self-promotion, that makes it virtually impossible for critical observers to perceive the German Prize for Business Communication as a fully reputable, academically sound award. The methodology here unmistakably submits to the principles of the award economy and university marketing.

The evaluation criteria: between aspiration and practice

The DPWK promotes a scientifically grounded set of criteria encompassing three main dimensions: conceptual integration, creative output, and the impact of communication measures. Within the impact assessment, a classic four-stage model of input, output, outcome, and outflow is applied. At first glance, this appears methodologically sound. However, closer examination reveals weaknesses that make the award susceptible to systematic bias.

The first problem lies in the data situation. The DPWK itself acknowledges that not all companies can disclose all key figures at the time of submission and weights the evaluation criteria accordingly. This flexibility is pragmatic, but in practice it relegates impact measurement, which should theoretically carry the decisive weight, to a subordinate role. If one campaign can present impressive reach figures but no outcome data on image change or purchase intent, while another carefully measures the outcome but has moderate reach, it is unclear how the weighting is actually carried out. Students have to make this assessment subjectively, without the weighting being made publicly transparent.

The second problem is the logic of self-reporting. Business communication awards generally don't evaluate the campaign itself, but rather the narrative about the campaign that a company or agency presents in its submission. Whoever writes a better story, whoever narrates the effects more plausibly, whoever selects and presents key performance indicators more skillfully, wins more easily than the one whose campaign was objectively perhaps more effective, but less linguistically compelling. This meta-distortion is structurally inherent in all communication awards, but particularly relevant in the DPWK (German Business Communication Award) because the jury has less experience in deconstructing such narratives.

Thirdly, the criteria catalog is conservative in its content. Categories such as conception, creation, and impact reflect the classic paradigm of advertising effectiveness research from the 1990s and 2000s. More recent paradigms, such as the critique of one-sided brand centricity, the debate about the social externalities of communication, or the question of the ecological and social sustainability of communication production itself, play no explicit role in the official methodology. A campaign that generates increased consumption is evaluated according to the same criteria as one that aims to change behavior toward lower resource consumption. This is a conceptual gap at a time when communication is increasingly discussed from a normative perspective.

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Reputation economics and the paradox of price inflation

A key context in which the DPWK must be evaluated is the general inflation of industry awards. Current discussions within the marketing and communications sector have sharply highlighted this point. Critics point out that many award shows and creative competitions are now commercially driven and sometimes hand out prizes indiscriminately. Others emphasize that awards still play an important role—especially for service providers and agencies—because they serve as proof of quality, strengthen reputation, and can be factored into pricing, for example, through premium offerings, higher daily rates, or as a compelling argument in pitches. At the same time, there are reports of brands that participate in awards only selectively due to the high costs and critical importance of many prizes.

In this context, the DPWK (German Creative Arts Competition) occupies a strategically advantageous but fragile position. On the one hand, it benefits from not being as commercially driven and broadly oriented as the major international creative competitions, which lends it a certain air of respectability. On the other hand, it risks losing its distinctiveness amidst the general noise of ever-increasing prizes. The distinctiveness of a prize does not increase linearly with the number of awards; rather, it declines beyond a certain point. When seven to eight main categories are awarded each year, often supplemented by special categories and shortlisted entries, the number of winners accumulates over two decades, devaluing each individual prize. The strategic challenge for the DPWK lies in maintaining rarity and exclusivity without becoming economically dependent on receiving as many submissions as possible.

The competition is fierce. The German Prize for Online Communication (DPK), awarded by Quadriga and KOM magazine, already presents prizes in 48 categories. In addition, there are PR awards, brand prizes, sustainability awards, agency rankings, and numerous other formats, all vying for attention, submissions, and sponsorship. While the DPK's claim of being awarded by students remains formally valid, it is increasingly being called into question within the industry, as other prizes also include academic jury members or incorporate student participation.

The transparency deficit beyond self-description

The German Political Science Association (DPWK) emphasizes transparency, independence, and scientific rigor in its self-description. Anyone who takes these claims seriously must measure them against verifiable criteria. Herein lies a transparency deficit that is remarkable for an award with academic aspirations. Neither the weighting of the fifteen individual criteria, nor the precise composition of the expert jury, nor the specific discussions leading to the jury's decisions are publicly documented. The yearbooks and shortlists provide information about award winners and categories, but not about voting patterns, dissenting votes, or rejected nominations.

This is no small matter, because an award that recognizes business communication should adhere to the highest standards in its own communication. If the evaluation logic remains largely a black box, the results become doubly dependent on legitimacy: their credibility depends entirely on the trust placed in the jury, and they can only be critically examined to the extent that the jury itself allows. For a student project, this lack of transparency is likely pragmatically justified, as complete disclosure would tie up resources that are not available. From the perspective of a sophisticated business communication science, however, it remains a point that is difficult to justify in the current debate about industry integrity.

The discrepancy between the art of communication and entrepreneurial reality

A frequently overlooked criticism concerns the relationship between award-winning communication performance and overall corporate responsibility. The DPWK (German Parity Welfare Association) evaluates individual campaigns, measures, or initiatives, not a company's entire communication behavior. While this is methodologically sound, it creates a problematic oversimplification. A corporation that runs a brilliant equality campaign in one area, while its other communication, lobbying, or stakeholder engagement remains questionable in other fields, can still win the "Golden Spark" award. Volkswagen's 2023 award for its brand activism campaign coincided with a period in which the company was simultaneously facing massive structural challenges in electromobility. This demonstrates that communication awards and corporate credibility do not necessarily go hand in hand.

This point cannot be attributed to the DPWK, as no communication award can evaluate a company's entire ethical framework. Nevertheless, the award's scope must be considered. An award is an indicator of communicative excellence in a specific project, but not a seal of approval for the overall conduct of the awarding company. Those who interpret the award in the public eye as a statement of quality for the entire organization overlook its internal methodological logic. Companies themselves sometimes use precisely this reductive form of the award in their own communications, thus assigning it a legitimizing function that is not methodologically sound.

The role of HTW Berlin in the tension between teaching and brand management

Since 2023, HTW Berlin has been the legal and financial sponsor of the German Business Communication Award (DPWK). This institutionalization strengthens the award's stability but also raises new questions. A state university that organizes a business communication award, recognizing companies and agencies for their sometimes commercial communication achievements, operates within a tension between its educational mission and branding principles. University President Semlinger explicitly views the award as an opportunity to highlight the competence and practical experience of HTW students. This statement is honest but also underscores the dual nature of the award: it is simultaneously an educational program, a marketing tool for the university, and an industry event.

The question of whether a publicly funded university should operate such hybrid formats is legitimate. On the one hand, they offer students practical training that they would not receive to the same extent in a traditional academic setting. The professional opportunities that arise from the DPWK network are a real advantage for graduates. On the other hand, this creates a close relationship between the academic institution and the commercial sector, which is traditionally handled rather cautiously in the German higher education landscape. The question of the scientific integrity of the evaluation process, adherence to good science standards in the publication of results, and a clear separation between teaching, award procedures, and commercial activities is therefore not only a methodological one, but also a matter of university policy.

The geographical and industry-specific narrowing

Another point of criticism concerns the de facto geographical and industry-specific narrowing of focus. While the DPWK (German Product Quality Award) has officially targeted submissions from the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) since 2006, in practice German companies dominate the list of award winners. Austrian and Swiss companies are underrepresented, which limits the award's significance as a pan-German quality indicator. At the same time, it is noticeable that certain sectors are significantly more represented than others. Retail, consumer goods, financial services, and public institutions dominate the lists, while sectors such as heavy industry, pharmaceuticals, construction, and traditional mechanical engineering are underrepresented.

This narrowing of focus partly reflects the actual communication intensity of the industries, as proximity to consumers correlates with communication needs. However, it also reflects a self-selection process in which communication-oriented industries submit a disproportionate number of entries. For an award that claims to comprehensively recognize excellent business communication, this imbalance represents a significant gap. Hidden champions of the German mechanical engineering sector, medium-sized family businesses in the manufacturing industry, and technology-driven B2B players are rarely found on the lists of award winners, even though they often deliver highly effective communication within their target groups.

The lack of clarity in relation to the creative and PR industry

A subtle but important criticism concerns the unclear positioning of the DPWK within the communication awards ecosystem. Is it a PR award, an advertising award, a brand award, an integration award, or a content award? The category structure, with “Brand and Product Communication,” “PR and Corporate Communication,” “Content and Social Media Communication,” “Event Communication,” “Recruiting and Internal Communication,” “Social and Environmental Communication,” and the special category “AI-driven Communication,” suggests a deliberately broad approach. This breadth is both a strength, as it reflects the integrated logic of modern communication, and a weakness, as it puts the DPWK in direct competition with almost every other industry award.

Specialized awards like the German Prize for Online Communication (DPOK), awards for employer branding, sustainability communication, or specific formats such as podcasts or video content often have a higher level of expertise within their niches. In this context, the DPWK must decide whether to sharpen its positioning as a broad, integrated business communication award or become more specific in its individual categories. Its current intermediate position makes it difficult to gain clear recognition within the industry. For entrants, it is not always clear what distinguishes the DPWK from competing formats, which could impact the number of high-quality submissions in the long run.

The question of impact measurement under new conditions

A current and significant criticism concerns impact measurement in the age of generative artificial intelligence and fragmented media ecosystems. Traditional input-output-outcome-outflow models assume that impact can be measured linearly and causally. In a world where algorithms, echo chambers, platform logics, and AI-generated parallel communications shape the flow of information, this assumption is becoming increasingly fragile. Campaigns today rarely have clearly identifiable chains of effect. They operate in interaction with countless other communication events that occur simultaneously.

The German Political Science Association (DPWK) has so far only addressed this debate through the special category "AI-driven Communication," which, however, focuses more on the production side than the impact side. The question of how impact assessments can still be methodologically valid under the conditions of AI-mediated communication is not reflected in the publicly available criteria catalog. For an award that sees itself as science-based, this is a methodological deficiency. As long as impact measurement largely follows pre-AI-era frameworks, the risk remains that campaigns will be awarded whose impact is due less to their own quality than to algorithmic amplification effects.

The lack of long-term assessment

One final substantial criticism is the lack of a long-term perspective. The DPWK recognizes campaigns within a narrow timeframe, usually referring to the year prior to submission. This means that campaigns whose short-term impact is impressive are awarded, while medium- and long-term effects are disregarded. Whether an image campaign that generated hype in 2023 still generates real brand value in 2026, whether an employer branding initiative that increased applications also improved retention and performance, or whether a values-based campaign created lasting loyalty or merely generated short-term attention—none of this is captured by the annual award cycle.

A thoughtful further development of the DPWK could begin here, for example through a long-term retrospective in which previous award winners are re-evaluated every three or five years. The information gained would be considerable, as it would show which campaigns had substance beyond the moment of the award and which faded away as brilliant one-off events. The fact that such a retrospective is currently lacking is a missed opportunity for an award that claims methodological rigor.

A balanced assessment

Those who critically evaluate the DPWK arrive at a nuanced judgment. The prize makes a valuable contribution. It offers students an exceptional learning platform, fosters dialogue between the communications industry and the next generation of academics, creates an annual forum for reflecting on best practices in communications, and recognizes campaigns from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the public sector that often get lost in large commercial competitions. Its commitment to a science-based, lobby-free evaluation is commendable, and its diverse categories reflect the complexity of modern communications work.

At the same time, a closer analysis reveals structural weaknesses that are relevant for an award with academic aspirations. The jury structure balances impartiality with a lack of experience, the funding logic creates pressure to acquire sponsors, the transparency of the evaluation procedures falls short of its stated goals, the data on impact assessments is often weak, the category architecture reproduces established paradigms, the geographical and industry-specific narrowing limits the scope, and the lack of long-term evaluation leaves a key methodological question unaddressed.

The criticism is not fundamental. The DPWK is not a token prize, a commercial trophy program, or a mere PR event. It is a serious industry award, but one that can be improved institutionally and methodologically. Its value stems from the specific mix of student perspectives, university ties, and industry networking. Those who see this mix as a strength will continue to value the prize. Those who apply stricter standards of scientific rigor will demand improvements. Both positions are legitimate, and both should be considered in the future development of the DPWK.

Recommendations for future development

The critical evaluation yields several concrete starting points for further development. First, the transparency of the evaluation procedures should be increased, for example, by disclosing the weighting of the fifteen individual criteria, publishing anonymized jury statements, and systematically documenting rejected nominations. Second, the separation between submission acquisition and jury activity should be more clearly institutionalized in order to mitigate the structural conflict of interest arising from the dual role of the same person. Third, the evaluation criteria should be expanded to include normative dimensions, such as the societal externalities and ecological dimensions of the evaluated communication measures.

Fourth, a long-term retrospective of award winners would enhance methodological depth. Fifth, geographical and industry-specific representation gaps should be closed through targeted recruitment in underrepresented sectors. Sixth, the special category “AI-driven Communication” could be transformed into a broader reflection on the methodological consequences of AI's pervasiveness in communication, including impact measurement itself. Seventh, an open debate on the role of HTW Berlin as the sponsor of a commercially supported industry award would be a valuable contribution to the discussion about the boundaries between academic teaching and industry economics.

How the German Prize for Business Communication can become an agenda-setter

The German Prize for Business Communication is at an institutional turning point. Since its acquisition by HTW Berlin as its legal and financial sponsor, it has gained stability, but at the same time, it has also triggered institutional expectations of academic rigor and methodological transparency that were not part of its original student-project concept. How the prize manages this tension will determine its relevance in the coming years. If it behaves like a typical industry award, it will be lost in the noise of numerous other prizes. If it takes its academic standards seriously and develops a unique selling point of methodological quality, it can occupy a distinctive position within the industry.

The critical evaluation of this award is therefore not a settling of scores, but a plea for seriousness. The DPWK deserves neither uncritical adulation nor knee-jerk denigration. It deserves the respectful, yet incorruptible, scrutiny befitting its own methodological standards. In an industry increasingly suspected of devaluing its own quality signals through inflationary awarding of prizes, the DPWK can take a counter-position by addressing its structural weaknesses as openly as it does the communicative achievements of its award winners. The "Golden Spark" can then be more than just a gleaming object on a communications director's display case. It can become a symbol of reflective, methodologically sound, and socially responsible business communication. The foundations for this are there. Whether they are utilized is the real question this award must answer in the coming years.