Strategy Meets MCA Excellence

Key Takeaways

• K+W and KWRE earned three national Awards of Excellence in the 2026 SMPS Marketing Communications Awards.
• Data Center Week: Then. Now. Next. was recognized in the Promotional Campaign – Digital category for bringing greater visibility to K+W’s data center expertise.
• Women in Engineering Week: Conversations That Build earned an Award of Excellence in Human Business Experience Communications – Digital for elevating conversations around mentorship, confidence, belonging, and representation.
• KWRE Power Players received an Award of Excellence in Brand Awareness Campaign – Digital for putting the people behind renewable energy projects at the center of KWRE’s storytelling.

Three campaigns. Three very different challenges. Three national Awards of Excellence.

One campaign revealed an expertise K+W’s clients didn’t know it had. Another opened up honest conversations about what it takes to build a career in engineering. The third looked beyond renewable energy projects to introduce the people powering them.

Together, Data Center Week: Then. Now. Next., Women in Engineering Week: Conversations That Build, and KWRE Power Players earned K+W and its renewable energy affiliate, KWRE, three Awards of Excellence at the 2026 Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) Marketing Communications Awards (MCAs), announced July 28 at Amplify A|E|C in Las Vegas.

The SMPS MCAs honor outstanding marketing achievements in the architecture, engineering, and construction industries, spotlighting firms that set the bar for creativity, innovation, and results.

The three winning campaigns tackled distinctly different challenges—from expanding awareness of K+W’s data center capabilities, to strengthening the pipeline of women entering the firm, to building deeper connections between KWRE and its audiences. Each began with a strategic business objective and used creative, human-centered storytelling to bring it to life. Together, they represent expertise worth discovering, conversations worth having, and people worth knowing.

Data Center Week: Then. Now. Next.

Award of Excellence
Category: Promotional Campaign – Digital

Sometimes the biggest marketing challenge isn’t breaking into a new sector. It’s showing people you were already there.

That was the strategic challenge behind Data Center Week: Then. Now. Next. K+W had the experience and technical expertise to support data center development, but that capability wasn’t always visible—even to longtime clients.

Built around the evolution of data center infrastructure, Then. Now. Next. combined videos, digital content, and insights from K+W experts to bring that expertise into focus. The campaign helped change the conversation around K+W’s role in this rapidly evolving sector and opened the door to new opportunities.

View the winning entry | See the campaign

Women in Engineering Week: Conversations That Build

Award of Excellence
Category: Human Business Experience Communications – Digital

Engineers spend their careers designing the infrastructure and communities that connect us. But some of the most important things we build are conversations.

For Women in Engineering Week 2025, Conversations That Build made K+W’s culture visible through eight voices sharing candid perspectives on mentorship, confidence, belonging, representation, and the experiences shaping their careers.

Grounded in insights from GROW (Giving Resources and Opportunities for Wisdom), the campaign offered an authentic look at the conversations that help people find their confidence, support one another, and build careers in engineering—because the future of the industry is shaped not only by what we build, but by the voices we choose to elevate.

View the winning entry | See the campaign

KWRE Power Players

Award of Excellence
Category: Brand Awareness Campaign – Digital

Behind every renewable energy project is a team of people solving complex challenges long before construction begins.

As KWRE’s renewable energy portfolio expanded nationwide, Power Players turned a strategic opportunity into a people-first campaign: build awareness of the firm’s expertise by introducing audiences to the people behind it.

Over eight months, the campaign featured 29 engineers, designers, and technical specialists, pairing professional expertise with personal stories, photos, interests, and perspectives. What began as a content campaign became a relationship builder—putting faces to familiar names and bringing one simple message to life: renewable energy is powered by people.

View the winning entry | See the campaign

We’re honored to see these stories recognized on a national stage and grateful to every K+W and KWRE team member who helped bring them to life. Thank you to SMPS and the MCA judges for their time, expertise, and continued commitment to celebrating creativity and excellence across the AEC industry.