Grand Prix: Modern Marketing at Cannes Lions 2025, Part 1
No rants. Just reviews. Promise.
It’s back.
In the most tumultous year the ad industry has had in recent memory; in a year when the knives have been out for the Cannes Lions festivals, sharpened and deadlier than ever before; in a year when AI stands poised to change everything…it’s back.
My take on the biggest winners of the year, through the lens of Modern Marketing.
The parameters I’ll be using are the same as last year:
Work that’s customer-centric. Based on a strong understanding of real customer needs, using data and insights to personalise the work.
Work that’s deeply rooted in culture.
Work that gets noticed and talked about, on social and in the press. Even if it doesn’t begin there.
Work which has measurable results, driving tangible business outcomes.
The only difference is this:
I’ve written at length about what I consider meaningful value when it comes to advertising. (Hint: It’s not a Lion.)
So, it’s only fair that I don’t just evaluate creative winners…but effectiveness winners too.
This year, I’m committing to writing a similar evaluation of the Global Effies.
So that we get a holistic view on what the best work in the world looked like.
Here goes…once again.
🧑🎄 AXA: 3 Words
🥷 Publicis Conseil
🏆🏆🏆 Dan Wieden Titanium, Creative Business Transformation, Direct
Customer-centric? ✅ The team found a truth that didn’t just determine the advertising — it shaped the product.
Rooted in culture? ✅ Sadly, domestic violence remains a concern, and a hot topic of discussion the world over.
Gets noticed? ✅ The campaign was clearly well-seeded, and well-received. It’s no surprise that it was picked up. The magic, IMHO, was making the change retroactive — a genius move, and honestly, the right one. This is a classic case of actions speaking louder than words.
Measurable results? ✅ Waiter, get me one of them 9% uplifts please!
Is this Modern Marketing? 👍
🧑🎄 Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Rakish, Chicago Hearing Society: Caption With Intention
🥷 FCB Chicago
🏆🏆🏆 Brand Experience & Activation, Design, Digital Craft
Customer-centric? ✅ There’s something to be said about identifying a small yet important aspect of the lived experience of deaf people.
Rooted in culture? ✅ The connect to the Oscars and filmmaking is key to the concept.
Gets noticed? ❌ A quick Google News search — various keywords — showed that only advertising publications picked this up. So while captioning won an Oscar, I’m not sure it won attention.
Measurable results? ❌ None worth talking about. Snippets of UI and supers talking about impacting major studios isn’t enough. I’d have liked to see adoption by streaming services or the number of titles being recaptioned by studios as an indicator of true impact.
Is this Modern Marketing? 👎 I’m sorry to say, but this smells just a wee bit like it was #MadeForCannesLions.
🧑🎄 Vaseline: Vaseline Verified
🥷 Ogilvy Singapore
🏆🏆 Health & Wellness, Social & Creator
Customer-centric? ✅ I love that the team decided to take up a real challenge — harmful beauty trends — and address it head on.
Rooted in culture? ✅ I have a soft spot for campaigns founded in social insights. But this one needs no special treatment. Vaseline hacks are part of beauty culture, and the team did a great job picking it up.
Gets noticed? ✅ No-brainer, this. Brand responses to community content often perform better than owned brand content.
Measurable results? ✅ Undeniably. They had me at “43% sales increase” and “7.1M organic reach”.
Is this Modern Marketing? 👍
🧑🎄 Dove: Real Beauty — How A Soap Brand Created A Global Self-Esteem Movement
🥷 Ogilvy UK, London
🏆🏆 Glass: The Lion For Change, Creative Strategy
Customer-centric? ✅
Rooted in culture? ✅
Gets noticed? ✅
Measurable results? ✅
Is this Modern Marketing? 👍
PS. There’s not much to write here. We’ve all grown up applauding Dove’s work. It’s brilliant, and has, for years, defined what great looks like. I do question awarding essentially a multi-year compendium of work that’s already won a ton of awards. But then, who knows what Cannes jurors think?
🧑🎄 New Zealand Herpes Foundation: The Best Place In The World To Have Herpes
🥷 Finch, Sydney | Motion Sickness, Auckland | NZ Herpes Foundation, Auckland
🏆🏆 Grand Prix For Good, Lions Health and United Nations Grand Prix For Good
Customer-centric? ❓ This one comes out of left field a bit. I struggled to find an insight here — apart from the cultural stigma here. In further research, I read somewhere that 80% of New Zealanders suffer from herpes in their lifetime. Other than that…meh.
Rooted in culture? ❓ Years ago, Lowe Lintas India had done the legendary Balbir Pasha to break the taboo about wearing condoms. That became cultural. I’m not sure the use of a celeb qualifies.
Gets noticed? ❌ I had to go to the graveyard of the Internet — page 6 of Google Search results — to find the first, non-award-related mention of the campaign.
Measurable results? ❌ Nope. Getting to #1 on their own “Stigma Index” doesn’t count.
Is this Modern Marketing? 👎 To my cynical eye, this looks like an opportunity to cash in on a moment in a rather old-fashioned manner.
🧑🎄 Channel4: Paris Paralympics 2024 — Considering What?
🥷 Channel4, London | 4Creative, London
🏆 Film
Customer-centric? ✅ Good insight.
Rooted in culture? ✅ Yeah.
Gets noticed? ❌ 729 views on YouTube, 99 comments. Decent video (undone by that voiceover-driven idea), but the engagement simply isn’t good enough.
Measurable results? 🖐 Let’s be fair — this is the Film category. I don’t expect a case study film about the film. So…hard to judge.
Is this Modern Marketing? 🖐 Not knowing the full context of the campaign from the entry, I’m going to give this an N/A.
🧑🎄 L’Oreal Paris: The Final Copy Of Ilon Specht
🥷 McCann, Paris
🏆 Film
Customer-centric? ✅ Surprised? Me too! What I liked about this was that it deconstructed one of the world’s most recognised slogans, peeking behind the scenes to do so.
Rooted in culture? ✅ No-brainer, right?
Gets noticed? ❓ The TED talk about the video got 231K views — but the trailer, a mere 1.4K.
Measurable results? ❌ None mentioned, apart from some earned media.
Is this Modern Marketing? 🖐 I’m going to give this an N/A given that it was the documentary that was entered in this category.
🧑🎄 Telstra: Better On A Better Network
🥷 Bear Meets Eagle On Fire, Sydney
🏆 Film Craft
Given the category, I’m going to award an N/A and move right along.
🧑🎄 GoDaddy: Act Like You Know
🥷 GoDaddy, Tempe, AZ | Quality Meats, Chicago
🏆 Creative B2B
Customer-centric? ✅ Yes! Looking professional is a huge driver for small businesses to sign up for a website or a professional email address. Nailed it.
Rooted in culture? ❌ Use of a celebrity doesn’t really count, does it?
Gets noticed? ✅ Definitely. The earned placements and impression count is pretty damn high.
Measurable results? ❌ Traffic to GoDaddy doesn’t count. That’s not a metric businesses should be focused on.
Is this Modern Marketing? 👎 Worse, the idea doesn’t feel original. Neil French did this years ago with XO Beer…and the formula’s been repeated — and rewarded — several times since.
That’s all my tired fingers can bear to type. Part 2, coming your way pretty soon!