Contact:
Elena Helgiu
Messy Desk Marketing
Email: elena@messydeskmarketing.com
September 27, 2026
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Messy Desk Marketing Wins Two Silver Awards at the 2026 NYX Awards: Season 2
NEW YORK, NY - September 27, 2026 - Messy Desk Marketing has received two NYX Silver distinctions at the 2026 NYX Awards: Season 2 for A Test-and-Learn Growth Marketing Consultancy, winning in the People & Team / Marketing Agencies category and the People & Team / Creative Boutiques category.
Presented by the International Awards Associate (IAA), the NYX Awards recognizes influential work across marketing, public relations, advertising, communications, and digital media. Season 2 received more than 1,500 entries from over 30 countries, concluding the program's 10th anniversary year with work from agencies, brands, organizations, in-house teams, studios, and independent professionals worldwide.
About the Recognized Work
Messy Desk Marketing is a boutique growth marketing agency for companies that have reached the point where the old playbook is no longer working. Like the name implies, Messy Desk takes on complicated marketing problems and brings structure, methodology, and experimentation to them.
The work is built around a simple idea: connect marketing back to the business, build hypotheses, test them, and use what the evidence shows to keep improving the growth engine. Messy Desk combines lean execution with scientific rigor, using behavioral science to inform the hypotheses it tests across paid media, lifecycle marketing, creative, analytics, and growth strategy.
"The Messy Desk Method requires checking your ego at the door. We test assumptions, push back on one another, maintain a bias for action, and don't stop at good enough. To me, these recognitions validate more than the agency - they validate the philosophy behind it," said Elena Helgiu, Founder of Messy Desk Marketing.
Behavioral Science at the Core
Elena Helgiu's background is in behavioral psychology. She studied psychology at Harvard and later completed a master's degree in business at the University of Cambridge. She then had the opportunity to apply behavioral science inside AIG, working alongside Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow.
That experience became an early foundation for Messy Desk Marketing. Today, the agency uses behavioral research to inform marketing hypotheses so that experimentation begins with evidence about how people make decisions, rather than with a preconceived idea for an A/B test. The result is a stronger starting point for testing and less time and budget spent chasing ideas without evidence behind them.
Evaluated by Global Industry Leaders
The entries underwent blind evaluation by an international jury comprising senior professionals from organizations including Harley-Davidson Motor Company, Meta, Volvo Car Malaysia, Mastercard, Le Pub, Guinness World Records, Twitch, The Verge at Vox Media, and TBWA Colombia.
Submissions were evaluated according to creativity and concept, content and communication, execution and production, innovation and strategic effectiveness, and overall impact and audience experience.
"The value of a NYX win is grounded in the standard behind it," said Thomas Brandt, spokesperson of IAA. "The winning entry was reviewed by professionals responsible for shaping communication across major global brands, platforms, agencies, and media organizations. The winner stood out through work that was clear in purpose, disciplined in execution, and relevant to the audiences it was created to reach. Their recognition brings the NYX Awards' 10th anniversary year to a powerful close."
View the recognized entries:
People & Team / Creative Boutiques
People & Team / Marketing Agencies
About Messy Desk Marketing
Messy Desk Marketing is a boutique growth marketing agency that helps companies solve complex growth problems through behavioral science, experimentation, creative strategy, and rigorous analysis. The agency connects marketing decisions back to business goals, builds test-and-learn roadmaps, and uses each round of evidence to make the next move smarter across paid media, lifecycle marketing, analytics, conversion optimization, and growth strategy.
About the NYX Awards
The NYX Awards is an international awards program recognizing influential work across marketing, public relations, advertising, communications, and digital media. Presented by IAA, the program honors work that combines creative thinking, strategic execution, and meaningful audience impact.
Website: nyxawards.com
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