When Brand Recognition Travels: The Ripple Effects of Industry Awards

Winning an industry award is often seen as the culmination of hard work and excellence. Yet the impact of recognition rarely stops with the winner. Drawing on research into awards such as the Swiss Beer Awards and the World's 50 Best Restaurants, Dr. Margarita Cruz explores how awards can influence business ecosystems, industries and even shape future definitions of excellence. What if the true value of an award lies not in the trophy itself, but in how far its legitimacy can travel?

You Won an Industry Award. Now What?

Industry awards have the ability to increase both product and brand visibility, shining the spotlight on products and companies. But their influence can, and should, go much further. Awards shape how an entire category positions itself, how an industry is perceived by external stakeholders, and even which places and products gain recognition. In doing so, they create access to new audiences and markets.

Essentially, industry awards provide legitimacy that can be converted into a greater superpower. They can act as bridges and mechanisms of legitimacy transfer, rather than merely as signals of quality to consumers. So, the question is: Can your award travel and, more importantly, how far can it go?

Based on my research on industry awards such as the Swiss Beer Awards and 50 Best Restaurants, I see awards not only as attributing value to the recipient. That value can also "travel" beyond the winner.

From Winner to Wider Impact

Awards first create consequences for the winner, most notably increased product visibility and opportunities for building brand reputation. But these organizational consequences can subsequently generate spillovers for business partners, industries, other sectors, and even geographical locations.

Take the example of a brewery that receives a Gold Medal. At first sight, a beer award acts as a quality certificate for beer drinkers. It also provides the brewery with brand recognition, legitimacy, and third-party validation of its product quality. But the most interesting effects often emerge after the moment of recognition. These effects tend to unfold in a series of interconnected ways.

1. The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

A beer industry award can provide enough credibility for a brewery to approach chefs, restaurants, or other high-status actors. This becomes particularly valuable when trying to collaborate with high-end gastronomic outlets. In this case, the award expands the ecosystem to which the award-winning brewery has access. What is particularly interesting, however, is that the status associated with an award can also create positive spillovers for business partners.

The recognition travels from the recipient brewery to consumers, helping strengthen consumer trust, and then extends to new partners, such as fine-dining restaurants interested in pairing their meals with award-winning beers. For the restaurant, collaborating with an award-winning brewery can also reinforce perceptions of quality in the eyes of diners, critics and other external audiences. The restaurant is not only presenting the quality of its own food and service, it is also showcasing the quality of the ecosystem surrounding it. In that sense, the value of the award no longer belongs exclusively to the original winner.

2. Across the Industry

Now consider fine-dining restaurants and 50 Best Restaurants. For a restaurant and its chef, being included in such a ranking can generate a significant boost in brand visibility and status. But the recognition can also say something about the broader industry.

The fact that a prominent international ranking recognizes restaurants within a particular region can help signal that the region has a sophisticated and professional gastronomic industry capable of combining high standards and innovation.

In this case, the award is no longer only a signal of quality for one restaurant. It becomes a signal of excellence for an industry and of the standards of product quality it represents. The recognition therefore "travels" from the individual recipient to other players operating within the same field. This matters because awards influence which businesses receive attention, what customers perceive as excellent, and which organizations become reference points for others.

3. Across Industries

Recognition travels even further when audiences outside the original industry begin to value the industry award and the brand reputation associated with it. This is where an award acquires particularly important strategic value.

Coming back to the Swiss beer example, a beer award can become more than a quality certificate for beer drinkers. It can provide enough credibility for a brewery to enter conversations with actors from a completely different industry, such as gastronomy. Recognition obtained in brewing can therefore help the brewery gain legitimacy in fine dining.

This is important because the true value of an industry award may not lie solely in increasing product visibility among customers. It may also lie in strengthening brand reputation among influential stakeholders and opening doors elsewhere. An award can facilitate access to new distribution channels, collaborations, suppliers, media, talent, or entirely new customer groups. The more easily an award is understood and valued beyond its original field, the further its recognition can travel.

4. Destinations and Places

Awards can also increase the visibility of the places, producers, ingredients and traditions associated with them. Rankings such as the 50 Best have become an important vehicle for gastronomic tourism. Food enthusiasts travel across countries and continents specifically to experience highly ranked restaurants. But they do not only encounter the restaurant.

Through these experiences, factors such as local ingredients, biodiversity and regional traditions can become visible to international audiences. Visitors interested in highly ranked restaurants may therefore discover much more than a meal. The award opens a door through which outsiders can explore the broader culinary world surrounding the recipient.

A similar phenomenon can occur in other industries. The case of Swiss beer suggests that regions hosting award-winning breweries can also benefit from increased interest in beer-related tourism activities, for example, beer festivals, brewery visits and beer hiking trails.

When Awards Shape Excellence

The organizational, market, industry and destination consequences created by awards can eventually influence future judgments about the product and the industry itself. Greater visibility can attract more experienced consumers and experts, whilst also having an impact on competition. Winning organizations may become reference points for others, while competitors may imitate some of their practices.

Eventually, the award system begins to influence the very field that it evaluates. This feedback loop is particularly important. Once a ranking such as Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants contributes to defining what Latin American haute cuisine looks like, future evaluators are judging restaurants in a field that the ranking itself has helped to construct. Awards therefore do not simply recognize excellence. Over time, they can also participate in defining what excellence means.

How to Amplify these Spillovers

So, what should a hotel, restaurant, brewery, or tourism business do after winning an award?

• Do not treat the award as the end of the process. Awards create potential value, but firms still need to convert that recognition into partnerships, distribution opportunities, new audiences, talent, and access to broader business ecosystems.

• /strong>Think beyond your immediate customer. The strategic value of an award may lie as much in how it is perceived by chefs, suppliers, journalists, investors, tourism organizations, or other industry actors as in how it is perceived by consumers.

• Ask how far your award can travel. Recognition becomes particularly valuable when it can generate legitimacy beyond the original product or industry.

• Remember that awards also shape markets. They influence what businesses imitate, what customers perceive as excellent, where attention and investment flow, and even which destinations become visible.

• Awards can influence future evaluations. As recognized organizations become reference points for excellence, the awards of today may also help shape the standards against which organizations are judged tomorrow.

The trophy itself may sit on a shelf. Its value does not have to.

Reference

Cruz, M. & Rua-Gomez, C. (2026). Staging the World's 50 Best plate: the dynamic role of space on the positioning of haute-cuisine in Latin America. EGOS, 2026. (https://www.egos.org/2026_Bergamo/General_Theme)