ORLANDO — The 2025 Adcolor conference took place next door to Cinderella’s Castle at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort. Yet if the past year were a fairy tale, this would be the moment furthest away from happily ever after.
But all is not lost. Without a fairy godmother flying to the rescue, the message of the 19th annual gathering was clear: It’s the people around you who will help write your next chapter.
“Community is what’s most important in these times — to hold each other close, to show up for each other, and really be able to stand together in the face of all the challenges that we’re facing today,” said Ghada Dajani, senior brand marketing leader at Shopify and a member of Adcolor’s board of directors.
“It’s really important to uplift the young people that are going through their careers early in marketing and the creative industries and really show them that there’s a place for them. Because if you can’t see it, you can’t be it.”
The power of that community was on full display at the 2025 Adcolor Awards gala, which took place Nov. 14 in the heart of the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando.
Adcolor, which champions people in creative industries who come from a variety of backgrounds spanning race, ethnicity, gender, disability, and neurodivergence, put on a defiantly shining evening to showcase work whose impact has been felt most keenly by the communities who gave rise to the honorees.
There was McCann and the Last Prisoner Project’s “Pen to Right History,” a campaign to vacate marijuana-related convictions. ADWEEK | Adcolor Beacon Award winner Richelieu Dennis went from selling shea butter in the streets of New York to creating a media platform and venture capital fund to promote the next entrepreneurs of color. And Joe Hall, who’s built a pipeline of underrepresented talent with his international nonprofit Ghetto Film School.
Adcolor also named two Legend award recipients: George Felix, CMO of Chili’s but known as a compassionate and creative leader across brands ranging from KFC to Old Spice; and Sofia Hernandez, who’s spent more than 20 years growing brands from founding to acquisition, currently leading TikTok’s global business marketing and commercial partnerships.