They're back, God help us all. The 2025 Stackie Awards have been announced, that annual carnival of martech madness where companies voluntarily expose their technology stack innards to the world. It's like watching digital exhibitionism for charity, and frankly, we're here for every second of it.
If you've somehow avoided this spectacle in previous years, the Stackies are essentially marketing's most bizarre form of public confession. Companies submit a single slide visualizing their marketing technology stack, the judges pretend to understand what they're looking at, and everyone celebrates the digital equivalent of opening your junk drawer on stage.
The contest has been running for years now, as the martech landscape has metastasized from a quaint 150 vendors to the current monstrosity of 12,000+ technologies. It's like watching someone collect cats – at first it's cute, then concerning, then you're calling reality TV producers.
The concept remains embarrassingly simple:
For each submission, the organizers donate $100 to Girls Who Code, so at least something productive comes from this digital peacocking. Last year they raised $28,500, which suggests either remarkable participation or a desperate attempt at karmic balance.
After years of observation, we've noticed patterns in what catches the judges' bloodshot eyes:
Previous winners have included respectable companies like Cisco and Philips, alongside startups that somehow accumulated more martech tools than employees. These brave souls exposed their technological underbellies to the world and lived to tell the tale. Most of them, anyway.
The winning entries typically fall somewhere between "impressively organized" and "clear cry for help." The beautiful part is that you never know which is which.
For those marketing masochists interested in participating, submissions go to stackies@chiefmartec.com by April 15, 2025. Include:
All entries will be published on chiefmartec.com because apparently privacy is not a concern when it comes to marketing technology confessionals.
Winners receive:
More importantly, each submission triggers a $100 donation to Girls Who Code – creating the next generation of engineers who will undoubtedly build more tools to add to future martech stacks. It's a beautiful, terrible cycle.
Last year's winners created visualizations that could only be described as digital art – if art regularly induced anxiety attacks in CMOs. They mapped customer journeys to technology capabilities. They created 3D models. One company actually submitted their stack as a CAKE, which crossed several lines of professional decorum but was apparently delicious.
The average marketing professional shouldn't be intimidated, though. The judges claim to be equally entertained by stacks held together with digital duct tape and desperation. Some past notable entries were reportedly sketched on napkins during particularly honest moments of clarity.
So there it is – another year, another opportunity to witness companies voluntarily display that horrifying collection of technologies they've accumulated like digital hoarders. The Stackies remain marketing's most peculiar ritual, equal parts humble-brag, group therapy, and charitable fundraiser.
Whether you're submitting your own stack or just watching from the sidelines with a mixture of horror and fascination, the 2025 Stackie Awards promises to be yet another revealing glimpse into the beautiful disaster that is modern marketing technology.
And isn't that what we're all here for? To witness others confess their technological sins while silently thanking the digital gods that no one can see our own martech junk drawers? Of course it is.
Submissions to stackies@chiefmartec.com by April 15, 2025. Each entry triggers a $100 donation to Girls Who Code. Winners announced at the MarTech Conference in San Francisco, May 2025.