THIS WEEK:The year's best marketing campaigns north and south of the Border will be celebrated this Wednesday at a gala dinner in Belfast.

The Marketing Excellence Awards Ireland, which are said to be among the most coveted and prestigious in the marketing profession, are taking place at the Titanic Belfast visitor attraction.

Tipped to win an award are Gemma Randles and Aisling Hanby of Dublin firm KOH Creative, who are finalists in no fewer than five categories.

The duo, who also founded Junction Studios, have been shortlisted for their work with Smiles Dental, Prue Simon’s and Clerys.

“We launched our business at the height of the recession and have built it up despite having to work with extremely limited resources and budgets, so it’s great to be recognised for our hard work by being nominated,” said Ms Hanby.

Last year, their campaign for Clerys came runner-up to Sainsbury’s at the ceremony

“It’s a great testament to the really hard work we did with Clerys that we have been nominated again this year for the campaign we did for them. It was quite disheartening that we lost the account with all the big changes at the department store recently,” Ms Randles said.

The annual awards competition, now in its 13th year, provides an opportunity to champion and reward marketing and sales excellence from across the island of Ireland and shows the positive impact individual organisations have had within their particular industries.