The advertising campaigns that stood out in 2025 did more than promote a product: they changed a service, made participation part of a lasting platform, or connected a familiar activity to a practical outcome. The examples below are an editorial selection of Cannes Lions 2025 Grand Prix winners and other work highlighted by the festival—not a measured ranking of every campaign worldwide. An award signals jury recognition in a specific category; reported campaign results are a separate kind of evidence.
What made these campaigns stand out?
Across the selected work, the strongest strategic move was to give the brand a useful role beyond buying attention. AXA changed what its home-insurance contract could do in a crisis. Sounds Right linked music streams to conservation funding. Caption with Intention treated accessibility as a creative design problem. Other campaigns made a long-running brand idea participatory or embedded a brand’s craft in a major cultural event.
To compare campaigns fairly, consider the problem addressed, the brand’s role, the creative mechanism, how audiences encountered or joined in, and what evidence is available. These dimensions reveal why an idea is notable without confusing a jury award with proof of commercial impact.
Campaigns that changed a brand’s role
AXA — Three Words
AXA’s Three Words won the 2025 Cannes Lions Creative Business Transformation Grand Prix. In France, the campaign added “and domestic violence” to AXA’s home-insurance contract. The official account says that when a victim calls the emergency number, she is immediately relocated and supported. The strategic change was to make an insurance service part of a concrete crisis response, rather than limiting its role to financial coverage. This example describes a French contract feature; it should not be read as a statement about AXA policies in other countries. Cannes Lions’ 2025 winners announcement quotes Jane Lin-Baden, CEO APAC and member of Publicis Groupe’s Global Management Committee, calling it “a systematic commercial solution for a systemic problem.”
#1 Best Overall
Sounds Right
The Museum for the United Nations – UN Live and Spotify created “NATURE” as an official artist so music tracks could credit nature and turn streams into conservation funding. The campaign won the 2025 Innovation Grand Prix. Its mechanism connected an ordinary listening behavior with a funding model for conservation, rather than depending on a novel technology. Cannes Lions’ jury president Courtney Brown Warren said the idea used “a simple, yet innovative approach to shifting a cultural mindset.” The festival’s announcement identifies the award and campaign; WPP’s retrospective includes the jury perspective on innovation beyond emerging technology. WPP’s Cannes Lions 2025 review quotes AKQA Chief Creative Officer for Australia and New Zealand Tara McKenty: “innovation doesn’t need to be tech based.”
Campaigns built to last or invite participation
Apple — Shot on iPhone
Shot on iPhone received the 2025 Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix. Cannes Lions described it as a long-running platform using everyday moments and user-generated content to democratize creativity, with both local and global resonance. Its repeatable premise invites people to create work with the product itself, then lets that participation supply campaign material. Cannes Lions says the platform ultimately led to iPhone becoming the world’s best-selling smartphone, attributing that comparison to Counterpoint 2025. That is a festival-reported claim; the cited account does not establish that the campaign alone caused the sales outcome. The festival’s announcement includes Creative Effectiveness jury president Andrea Diquez’s description of the platform as transforming everyday moments into art.
Dove — Real Beauty
Real Beauty won the 2025 Creative Strategy Grand Prix. Cannes Lions framed it as a sustained point of view—representing everyday women as “Real Women”—that can generate successive campaign ideas rather than depend on one execution. The jury discussion connected the work to a 20-year commitment to self-esteem. WPP’s retrospective also considers the campaign’s continuing commitment and related media work for the AI era. The strategic lesson is consistency with room to reinvent: a recognizable belief gives future work coherence, while new expressions keep it relevant. Cannes Lions’ winners announcement and WPP’s retrospective describe the campaign’s long-term positioning.
Creative forms that solve practical problems
Caption with Intention
Created for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Rakish and the Chicago Hearing Society, Caption with Intention won the 2025 Brand Experience & Activation Grand Prix and Design Grand Prix. It uses animation, typography and colour to make captions more expressive while addressing legibility and clarity. Instead of treating captions as a fixed line of text, it makes their visual form part of the viewing experience. Cannes Lions’ B2B coverage says the system is required for Oscar-eligible films and has been adopted by major studios. In describing the audience it serves, the festival cites 433 million people globally with hearing loss; that figure is the festival’s attribution, not a newly assessed prevalence estimate. The winners announcement and Cannes Lions’ B2B coverage describe the awards and adoption.
Rank #3
Ziploc — Preserved Promos
Preserved Promos won the 2025 Creative Commerce Grand Prix. Influencers helped promote a mobile-commerce experience that turned expired and unused coupons into savings opportunities for shoppers and sales for retailers. The idea tied a practical shopping benefit to Ziploc’s association with preservation: instead of letting a coupon’s value go unused, the experience offered a way to put it to work. Cannes Lions’ account describes the campaign mechanics, but does not provide an independently audited sales result. The official winners announcement identifies the category and campaign.
Partnership as part of the event experience
LVMH — The Partnership That Changed Everything
The 2025 Luxury Grand Prix recognized LVMH’s role in the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The group and its Maisons contributed craft and products to the event itself: Dior dressed performers, Berluti outfitted French athletes, Chaumet designed medals incorporating Eiffel Tower fragments, and Louis Vuitton supplied trunks and trays. Rather than appearing only as a sponsor, the group made branded expertise visible in the ceremony, uniforms, medals and event logistics. Cannes Lions’ winners announcement describes the partnership and its contributions.
Other notable campaigns and the results Cannes Lions reported
Cannes Lions’ B2B coverage also discusses campaigns whose reported outcomes help illustrate how different objectives can be measured. These figures are reported by the festival; the coverage does not supply an independent audit or complete measurement methodology for each one.
| Campaign | Reported result | What the result describes |
|---|---|---|
| Asics — Desk Break Clause | 40% year-on-year increase in Google search traffic for Asics | Search traffic, as reported by Cannes Lions in 2025 |
| Nescafé — Plantlets for Future | More than 300 million coffee plantlets distributed to farmers; more than 3 million coffee drinkers reached through social | Distribution and social reach, as reported by Cannes Lions in 2025 |
| Google Workspace — 50 States, 50 Stories | 20× increase in trial conversions | Trial conversions, as reported by Cannes Lions in 2025 |
The Asics campaign framed desks as a wellness issue. Nescafé’s work linked coffee growing to plantlet distribution and social communication. Google Workspace used 50 mini-documentaries about small businesses. Their metrics track different outcomes—search interest, distribution and reach, and trial conversion—so they are not directly comparable measures of overall campaign effectiveness. Cannes Lions’ B2B coverage reports the figures and campaign descriptions.
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The festival’s 2025 winner spotlight names additional work including IKEA Hidden Tags, KitKat Phone Break, Night Fishing, Act Like You Know and Let There Be Cake. It reports that Lisbon agency Uzina submitted six entries for IKEA Hidden Tags and received five Lions, but its spotlight does not explain each campaign’s mechanics in detail. The Cannes Lions winner spotlight provides the wider shortlist.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to interpret awards and campaign metrics
A Cannes Lions Grand Prix is recognition in a named category, not a universal ranking or a guarantee of sales impact. A reported metric can be useful evidence for a specific objective, but its meaning depends on the measure, timeframe and methodology. For example, search traffic, trial conversions, social reach and physical distribution describe different kinds of performance.
- Award recognition: establishes that a jury selected work in a particular category.
- Campaign intent or mechanism: explains what the idea was designed to do and how it worked.
- Reported result: gives a publisher-attributed figure, which should remain tied to that publisher and its stated measure.
- Independent or audited outcome: requires substantiation beyond an award description or case-study claim; the cited coverage does not provide a consistent audited dataset across these examples.
Cannes Lions reported that Creative Effectiveness entries were up 6.5% year on year and Creative Commerce received a record 644 entries in 2025. Those are award-program entry figures, not campaign-performance results. The festival announcement reports them alongside the category winners.
What marketers can take from the 2025 work
- Make the offer more useful: AXA changed a contract’s practical role in France, while Ziploc built a savings mechanic around coupons.
- Give people a reason to participate: Shot on iPhone’s long-running user-generated platform lets audiences contribute to the campaign idea.
- Turn a point of view into a system: Dove’s Real Beauty shows how a sustained brand belief can support fresh work over time.
- Design access into the experience: Caption with Intention makes accessibility part of the creative form, not an afterthought.
- Look beyond new technology: Sounds Right demonstrates how a new funding connection can be innovative even when it relies on familiar behavior.
- Choose evidence that matches the objective: define whether success means awareness, participation, conversion, distribution or a service outcome, then report that measure with its scope and methodology.
The common thread is not a particular medium or technology. It is a clear role for the brand—solving a problem, enabling participation, improving access or contributing meaningfully to an event—paired with evidence that is described at the level it can support.
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