Gold. And now, the nationals.

On the evening of 18 June 2026, at The Marquee in Bedford, Bonfire® Creative Intelligence™ was awarded Gold in the Best Enterprising Business category at the SME Bedfordshire Business Awards 2026. It is a result that means a great deal to everyone in the Bonfire® team – and one that has immediately opened the door to the next stage: we are now shortlisted in the same category at the SME National Business Awards 2026.

We were shortlisted in three categories at the SME Bedfordshire Business Awards – Business Innovation, Best Enterprising Business, and Central Bedfordshire Business of the Year. Winning Gold in Best Enterprising Business is the recognition we are proudest of, because it reflects precisely what this year has been about: moving forward with intent, building something new, and doing it from our home in Bedfordshire.

A 25th anniversary year unlike any other

2026 marked 25 years of Bonfire®. We celebrated that milestone not by looking back, but by accelerating forward. The anniversary became the catalyst for the most ambitious programme of product development in our history – three proprietary tools brought to market as we entered our 26th year, each one rooted in a quarter-century of client experience and research.

Those three products formed the heart of our award entry, and they are worth introducing properly.

The Extraordinary Brand Framework™ is a 12-pillar diagnostic tool that gives brands the measurement clarity that 80% of the industry currently lacks. It is built on independent effectiveness research and introduces a 12th pillar unique to Bonfire®: Exospection®, the conscious effort to understand and consider the emotional experience of your audience. The framework launched as a published white paper in January 2026 and is now in active use with clients seeking a structured, evidence-based approach to brand assessment and review.
Read more about the Extraordinary Brand Framework here

AskPinpoint™ is a UK audience profiling and geo-data tool that gives any business – regardless of size – the kind of demographic, geographic and behavioural insight previously available only to organisations with significant research budgets. An SME can now understand precisely who its best customers are, where similar audiences exist across the UK, and where to invest its marketing spend to reach them most effectively. The intelligence that once separated large brands from small businesses no longer has to.
Read more about AskPinpoint here

JustAiSK® is an agentic AI assistant platform engineered specifically for WordPress and WooCommerce websites. Turning visitor conversations into sales conversions by integrating an intelligent, automated digital agent directly into an e-commerce storefront or website. It is a considered, brand-consistent tool designed to engage customers genuinely and support real commercial growth.
Read more about JustAiSK here

Together, these three products represent a fundamental shift in what Bonfire® is: from a creative consultancy that applies intelligence on behalf of clients, to a brand intelligence business that puts that intelligence directly into clients’ hands.

Thank you

Awards like this are not won by the business alone. They are won by the people inside it.
To the Bonfire® team: thank you. The level of commitment, talent and sheer belief that has gone into delivering client work at the highest standard whilst simultaneously building three market-ready products is something we are enormously proud of. This Gold is yours.

We also want to thank the Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce for running SME Bedfordshire Business Awards a competition that genuinely champions the ambition, resilience and ingenuity of businesses across this region. The standard of entries this year was exceptional, and being recognised at this level, in this company, means something real.

And to our clients, partners and the wider Bedfordshire business community who continue to inspire and challenge us: this one is for you too.

What comes next

The now even grander shortlisting at the SME National Business Awards 2026 is a wonderful opportunity, and we will approach it with the same rigour and ambition that took us to Gold in Bedfordshire. But the work does not pause for awards. The Bonfire® team continues to deliver for clients, to develop our tools, and to build the case for what extraordinary brand intelligence can do for businesses of every size.

To celebrate further we do have some great offers on these tools until the end of July. So if the Extraordinary Brand Framework™, AskPinpoint™ or JustAiSK® have piqued your interest – or if you simply want to understand how Bonfire® can help your brand uncover, unlock and unleash its extraordinary – we would love to hear from you.

Get in touch at [email protected], call us on 01525 841079