If you’re trying to get some recognition for your CBD brand, magazine, distribution platform, e-commerce retailer or as an influencer, then nominating yourself for an award can be one of the best steps you can take.
You can wear the ‘badge of honour’ throughout your website, on product packaging and in email newsletter’s. They help to convince potential customers that you’re the best in the business and can also add some weight to your claims when talking to journalists.
I’ve done my absolute best to collate all of the best CBD awards around the world, so you don’t have to sift through Google.
As the year progresses and more details are posted, I will update this article, to ensure it’s all up to date. As you can imagine, the list is relatively limited currently with the world just starting to re-open, however I’m expecting plenty of announcements over the next 2 months.
World CBD Awards
The World CBD Awards are arguably the most high profile of them all, which the name would suggest.
The 2019 awards were highly attended and spoken about in the industry, while the awards took place in Barcelona in 2022.
Now for 2023, they will be held in Portugal at the Palacio Estoril Hotel, with a number of new award categories.
Nomination Process: https://www.worldcbdawards.com/award-categories/
Cost: £100 lab testing fee and £50 device test fee. 4 day full event tickets are £500, or for a 1 day conference ticket, it costs £100.
Date: 9-12th October 2023
Location: Estoril, Portugal
Cannavist Awards
These awards are won through votes rather than judges, so if you enter them, make sure to share it with your family and friends.
There are 15 different categories, blending CBD with mind & body, nutrition and readers awards.
Nomination Process: https://www.awards.cannavistmag.com/
Cost: £0
Date: 23rd November 2023
Location: Online
Hip & Healthy CBD Awards
Hosted on DiaryDirectory, a marketing and PR website, this is purely an online awards.
There are 13 different categories, all around CBD product types
Nomination Process: https://www.diarydirectory.com/newsarticle/entries-open-for-hip-healthy-cbd-awards-2023/49607
Cost: £250 + VAT
Date: 21st August 2023
Location: Online
The Beauty Shortlist
The Beauty Shortlist has a large number of categories, while they have an award for the best CBD brand in the UK and the USA, best CBD gummies, CBD oil, capsules, drinks, coffee and plenty more.
If you sell topical CBD products, you may want to enter the Beauty Shortlist in order to get recognition for your skincare products as well.
Nomination Process: https://www.thebeautyshortlist.com/
Cost: £150
Date: 2nd March 2023
Location: Online
Global Health & Pharma Commercial Cannabis Awards
The Global Health & Pharma (GHP) launcehd in 2015 and has a circulation of 260,000, while they choose their nominations themselves, so it can’t hurt to get in contact and make your brand known to them.
Entries open in October and close in December, before the awards take place in February. Sure, you might be too late to win this year, but October will come around quickly, so make sure to put this in your calendar.
Nomination Process: https://www.ghp-news.com/awards/commercial-cannabis-awards/
Cost: £0
Date: March 2023
Location: Online
Men’s Health Awards
Men’s Health seem to now be running an annual awards for the best CBD products. I took part in 2020, as a judge for the Men’s Health awards focused purely on the CBD category.
The awards don’t involve an event or an actual trophy, it’s purely an online article basis, but it’s still a great way trust signal for potential customers if you’re a winner.
The awards seem to take place in February each year.
Nomination Process: Speak with their journalists
Cost: £0
Date: February 2023
Location: Online
Med-Tech Cannabiz World Awards
I’m a big fan of these awards, as it was my first recognition for CBD Sloth. In the November 2019 Cannabiz World Awards, on the last day of their summit in Malta, I won the Media of the Year award.
Once again, they will be kicking off in Malta, this time in November, supported by the Visit Malta tourist board.
The awards has changed name, now titled Med-Tech World, the event is moving its focus towards innovations in emerging technology for the global medical ecosystem, while it’s managed by the SiGMA group.
Nomination Process: https://med-tech.world/awards/apply/
Cost: TBC
Date: 18th November 2023
Location: Malta
Hemp & CBD Expo
The event last took place in September 2019 at the Birmingham NEC expo, which is a huge venue I’ve attended a good few times. The awards takes place with a 3 course dinner and ceremony for the exhibitors and top B2B guests.
While the plan was to kick off the Spring expo last year in March, this simply wasn’t possible with lockdown, however there are hopes that the September version may go ahead, yet I’m still to hear whether they will be hosting the awards. Here’s hoping they introduce an Influencer category!
Nomination Process: Not yet open
Cost: TBC
Date: TBC
Location: Birmingham, UK
Can You Enter To Judge Awards?
Most of the CBD awards are open to entries to judge the various different award categories. However, if you work for or own a CBD brand, then this would be considered a conflict of interest and you’ll most likely be refused.
The award websites normally have a page detailing how you apply to be a judge, or if you can’t find it, you can email them to enquire.
Who Can Make A Nomination?
The CBD awards are all open to anyone who meets the criteria for that category. While most of the time a brand is nominated by a representative, it is possible that a customer may nominate a brand for a certain award. This is less likely if lab report costs are involved.
How Do I Enter?
Go through the links highlighted above to their website and enter your details under nominations. You will have to find the right category to enter, but you can enter more than one. In fact, I’d strongly recommend entering as many as you qualify for.
How Do I Win?
I have judged for the UK Agency Awards and the EU Search Awards, so I have a fair amount of experience with the judging process, going through hundreds of entries.
While some awards will simply involve you submitting the basic details and sending off your product, other categories might require some written content.
You should try to cover the reasons why you’ve entered, what makes your product stand out from the competition, the history of the brand and why the business was started and future plans.
If you’re talking about a campaign, try to detail out how you created SMART objectives, how you utilised your budget, what you implemented, what the results were and how this impacted your business.
Provide as much detail as possible, including screenshots and graphs where you can. More is always better in this scenario, as most brands under deliver when entering awards.
Do I Have To Pay To Attend?
Yes, most of the awards will cover a large portion of their costs by selling tickets. The ticket will often involve a seat at a table with a three course meal.
If the awards are attached to an exhibition, it might provide you with access for the day to the expo, however most will require an upgraded ticket if you wanted to attend the full expo (normally 2-3 days).
A bottle of alcohol may also be included with your ticket, but for any extra drinks, you will normally have to pay for these at the bar. If you want to pay for your whole team to attend, you can sometimes speak to a sales person to see if they can arrange a group discount so you have the whole table booked.