cannes lions grand prix winners 2026

Every year, thousands of campaigns are submitted to Cannes Lions, yet only a select few receive the festival's highest recognition: the Grand Prix.

In this article, we've selected ten of the year's most outstanding winners. More importantly, we'll look beyond the creative execution to understand the strategic insight behind each campaign and the solution that turned that insight into work worthy of the industry's highest honor.

Once you explore not only the campaigns themselves but also the thinking behind them, it becomes clear why these ideas stood above the rest.

Before we begin, a quick reminder: our Cannes Lions 2026 Trends Report is now available to download. It explores the key shifts shaping modern marketing and the major themes that defined this year's festival.

titanium lions

Campaign: Haven
Agency: Leo Australia
Brand: Suncorp Insurance

 

Insight

Insurance companies typically step in after damage has already occurred. But for people, preventing harm is far more valuable than being compensated once it's too late.

Solution

Suncorp addressed this challenge by creating Haven, a digital platform that analyzes weather conditions, environmental data, and other risk signals to alert customers about potential dangers in real time. More importantly, it provides practical recommendations on how to reduce or avoid damage before it happens.

The initiative transformed insurance from a reactive compensation service into a proactive everyday partner. In doing so, marketing stopped being something that simply promoted the product - it became part of the product experience itself.

glass: the lion for change

Campaign: Nigrum Corpus
Agency: Artplan, São Paulo
Brand: IDOMED (Instituto de Educação Médica)

Insight

Medical education has historically been built around clinical materials featuring white patients. As a result, symptoms often appear differently on Black skin, leading to delayed or inaccurate diagnoses. The issue goes far beyond awareness - it reflects a systemic gap in medical education.

Solution

IDOMED created Nigrum Corpus, an educational medical resource that documents how diseases present in Black patients, giving healthcare professionals the knowledge needed to make more accurate diagnoses.

Rather than ending as an awareness campaign, the initiative became part of medical education itself. Its long-term impact has also been recognized at Cannes Lions. In 2025, the publication won the Industry Craft Lions Grand Prix. This year, the broader initiative received another Grand Prix, recognizing its transformation from a campaign into a catalyst for systemic change.

health & wellness lions

Campaign: The Periodic Fable
Agency: SMUGGLER, London / Uncommon Creative Studio, London
Brand: The Ordinary

Insight

The beauty industry constantly introduces new buzzwords - "miracle formula," "medical-grade," "poreless," and countless others. Yet these terms rarely reflect a product's true quality. More often, they create marketing illusions designed to justify premium prices.

Solution

Known for its commitment to ingredient transparency, The Ordinary reimagined the periodic table by replacing chemical elements with 49 empty marketing buzzwords commonly used across the beauty industry.

The campaign challenged consumers to look beyond persuasive language and focus instead on what actually matters: the ingredients inside the product.

 

film lions

Campaign: Claude (Can I Get a Six Pack Quickly? / How Can I Communicate Better with My Mom?)
Agency: Mother London
Brand: Anthropic (Claude)

Insight

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into everyday life, people are beginning to worry that AI platforms will eventually follow the path of search engines and social media - becoming cluttered with advertising and commercial influence. Users increasingly value spaces where answers are shaped by their needs rather than by advertisers.

Solution

Anthropic built its positioning around precisely that concern.

Through a series of humorous films, the company introduced Claude as "the AI without ads." Instead of following the industry's commercial direction, the campaign positioned Claude as a neutral assistant focused entirely on the user's interests.

Rather than competing solely on technology, Anthropic chose to compete on trust.

audio & radio lions

Campaign: Coquí Alarmed
Agency: BBDO Puerto Rico
Brand: Hyundai Puerto Rico

Insight

In 2025, a Reddit post from a tourist complaining about the loud calls of Puerto Rico's native coquí frogs - and suggesting they should be eliminated - sparked widespread backlash across the island.

For Puerto Ricans, the coquí is far more than a noisy amphibian. Its distinctive call is a powerful symbol of national identity, cultural pride, and resilience. What some visitors perceived as an inconvenience, locals recognized as part of the island's soul.

Solution

As an international brand operating in Puerto Rico, Hyundai chose not to stay on the sidelines. Instead, it celebrated the local culture by replacing the default lock sound in its rental vehicles with the authentic call of the coquí frog.

Rather than speaking about local identity, the brand embedded it into a small but meaningful everyday experience - demonstrating that cultural relevance is often found in the details.

outdoor lions

Campaign: Field Barcode
Agency: GUT São Paulo
Brand: Mercado Livre

Insight

Football already commands people's full attention. Brands don't need to fight for visibility during the game. Instead, the real opportunity lies in becoming a natural part of the experience itself.

Solution

Mercado Livre transformed the pitch at São Paulo's Pacaembu Stadium into a 104-meter barcode.

Fans could scan the field in real time to unlock exclusive offers, interact with the brand, and receive discounts directly through their mobile devices.

The campaign redefined outdoor advertising, turning what is traditionally a static medium into a live, interactive brand experience. Instead of interrupting attention, the brand became part of the moment fans were already immersed in.

print & publishing lions

Campaign: Look Familiar
Agency: Rethink, Toronto
Brand: Heinz Ketchup

Insight

When a brand has built strong and distinctive assets over time, showing the product itself becomes unnecessary. Consistency creates recognition, allowing consumers to identify the brand from even the smallest visual cues.

Solution

Heinz created a minimalist print campaign in which the iconic ketchup bottle never appeared.

Instead, the ads relied solely on the brand's distinctive visual assets - shapes, colors, and design elements that consumers instinctively associate with Heinz.

The campaign served as another powerful reminder that strong brand equity remains one of the most valuable competitive advantages a business can build. When a brand becomes truly distinctive, recognition no longer depends on displaying the logo or the product - it lives in the associations people already carry in their minds.

industry craft lions

Campaign: Tiny Coffee Shops
Agency: Lola MullenLowe, Madrid
Brand: De'Longhi

Insight

People don't just love great coffee - they love the atmosphere that comes with it. Independent cafés offer a sense of warmth, craftsmanship, and authenticity that many consumers wish they could recreate at home.

Solution

To bring that feeling to life, De'Longhi partnered with miniature artists to transform its coffee machines into beautifully crafted tiny coffee shops.

Rather than focusing on product features or technical specifications, the campaign visualized the emotional experience the brand delivers. It reminded audiences that exceptional coffee isn't only about taste—it's about creating moments that make home feel like your favorite café.

creative effectiveness lions

Campaign: Three Words
Agency: Publicis Conseil
Brand: AXA France

Insight

For many survivors of domestic violence, leaving an abusive relationship isn't simply an emotional decision. One of the greatest barriers is practical: having nowhere safe to go and lacking the financial means to start over independently.

Solution

AXA France made a remarkably simple but life-changing change to its home insurance policy by adding just three words: "and domestic violence."

With those words, domestic violence became a valid reason for emergency relocation, alongside events such as fire or flooding.

As a result, survivors and their children gained immediate access to temporary safe housing, followed by long-term support in securing permanent accommodation, as well as legal and psychological assistance.

The campaign demonstrates how meaningful innovation doesn't always require creating something new. Sometimes, the greatest impact comes from rethinking an existing product - and using it to solve a real human problem.

entertainment lions & entertainment lions for music

Campaign: Original Forever
Agency: Johannes Leonardo, New York
Brand: adidas Originals

Insight

The return of Oasis became one of the defining cultural moments of the year, with brands rushing to associate themselves with the band's long-awaited reunion.

adidas, however, didn't need to manufacture relevance.

The brand and Oasis have shared decades of cultural history, a recognizable visual identity, and a relationship that audiences have long considered authentic. The connection already existed.

Solution

Instead of becoming just another sponsor, adidas Originals designed the band's official tour merchandise and built the campaign around their shared cultural legacy rather than the partnership itself.

Under the idea "The Band with the Three Stripes," the campaign celebrated the long-standing relationship between the brand, the band, and generations of fans.

In doing so, adidas didn't simply capitalize on nostalgia. It reconnected longtime audiences with a cultural icon while introducing Oasis to a new generation - proving that authenticity always resonates more deeply than opportunism.

conclusion

Each of these campaigns is remarkable in its own way. But if there is one sentence that captures what truly won at Cannes Lions this year, it would be this:

The winning work wasn't simply creative i it solved real problems, improved people's lives, and created meaningful change.

Across categories, the strongest ideas moved beyond communication. They challenged outdated systems, strengthened communities, protected people, celebrated culture, and transformed products into services with genuine human value.

This is what creativity increasingly looks like today.

Not creativity for attention's sake, but creativity with purpose.

Sometimes it makes us laugh. Sometimes it confronts uncomfortable realities. Sometimes it changes a policy with just three words. But at its best, creativity encourages us to see the world differently - and reminds us that change is always possible.

And perhaps that's the greatest power of our industry.

Until the next Cannes Lions.