879 articles · page 10 of 19
APPLE COMPUTER | 1984 | 1984
January 22, 1984, third quarter of the Super Bowl. On screens watched by 960,000 people, 60 seconds ran with no product and no specs in sight. Just a woman hurling a hammer, and a screen shattering. The two commentators looked at each other and couldn't help but ask, "What was that?"
SPINNEYS THE LEBANESE BREAST CANCER FOUNDATION | THE BREAD EXAM | 2020
The motion of kneading bread dough and the motion of a breast self-exam. They turned out to be nearly identical. That one observation was enough to break through a cultural taboo.
CACHEREL | LES VELOS | 1979
France, 1979. This ad won the GRAND PRIX. I actually don't know anything else about it. But I think that's alright.
JACQUARD WEARABLE FABRIC | JACQUARD WEARABLE FABRIC | 2016
What if technology disappeared every time you put on your clothes? That's exactly what Google set out to do. This is the story of a jacket where you can control calls and music just by brushing your hand across the denim sleeve.
MARS | HOPE REEF | 2022
A cat food company planted letters on the ocean floor. H-O-P-E. Visible from space, on Google Earth. And made of living coral.
LEICA | 100 | 2015
100 years ago, Leica took photography "out of the studio." This 2-minute film tells that story through the recreation of 35 iconic photographs. The seamless transitions, the flawless execution, and that provocative narration. The first time I saw it, I forgot to breathe.
VOLVO | NOW, THAT'S HARDTOP | 1971
This is an ad from 1971 where Volvo talks about hardtops. Back then, in the American market, Volvo—having come all the way from Sweden—was in the middle of building its reputation as a maker of tough, sturdy cars.
IM SWEDISH | THE HUMANIUM METAL INITIATIVE | 2017
Melt down guns, turn them into metal. That simple idea won the Grand Prix in the Innovation category at Cannes Lions in 2017. The metal, made from seized illegal firearms, is called Humanium Metal.
ADIDAS ORIGINALS | ORIGINAL IS NEVER FINISHED | 2017
What does "original" even mean? To answer that question, adidas remixed one of the most overused songs in history, Frank Sinatra's "My Way." The whole idea is ridiculous, and that's exactly why I love it.
NIKE | San Silvestre Vallecana 2003 | 2004
It starts with a news story that sounds made up: lightning strikes the statue of a bear on Madrid's coat of arms, and it comes to life and runs off. That's how this campaign begins—and it ended up winning Spain's first Cannes Lions Grand Prix in Digital.
OBAMA/BIDEN 2008 | OBAMA FOR AMERICA | 2009
At Cannes in 2009, the jury did something no political campaign had ever had done to it before. They gave it two Grand Prix at once, in Titanium and Integrated, and both decisions were unanimous.
VOLKSWAGEN | Launch II | 1988
In 1988, this film won the Grand Prix at Cannes. It came from the golden pairing of VW and DDB, but honestly, I barely know any details about it myself.
WALKERS CRISPS | SANDWICH | 2011
There really is a town in England called Sandwich. This is the story of how celebrities showed up there one after another and took over the town for three days.
ALWAYS | INTIMATE WORDS | 2015
If you don't have the words, you can't describe your symptoms. If you can't describe your symptoms, you can't get diagnosed. The indigenous women of Oaxaca had no words to talk about their own bodies.
BROOKE BOND RED LABEL TEA | 6 PACK BAND | 2016
In 2016, an Indian tea brand teamed up with a transgender band of six. The reason it won the Grand Prix at Cannes comes down to this: the women weren't filmed as people to feel sorry for.
DOORDASH | Self-Love Bouquet | 2023
Eleven roses arrive for Valentine's Day, and the 12th is "Rose™" — the rose-shaped sex toy that went viral on TikTok. DoorDash slipped it into bouquets and sold them. They sold out in three days and won the Grand Prix in PR at Cannes Lions.
IDOMED | NIGRUM CORPUS | 2025
"If racism is a disease, the cure is education." To bring that idea to life, a Brazilian medical education institute didn't make a video or a social campaign — they made a book.
JOHNSON & JOHNSON | 5B | 2019
A 94-minute documentary won the Grand Prix in the Entertainment category at Cannes Lions, an advertising award. What's more, it had an official screening at the Cannes Film Festival and got a theatrical release in more than 100 theaters across the US. A brand made it, but it ended up working as an actual film.
SPECSAVERS | THE MISHEARD VERSION | 2024
They had Rick Astley re-record "Never Gonna Give You Up" with the lyrics deliberately swapped for commonly misheard versions, then released it with no explanation at all. It got 20 million plays in 8 hours. At Cannes it won six Lions and two Grand Prix. It was the first time a PR agency had won the PR Lions Grand Prix on its own.
DIESEL | ENJOY BEFORE RETURNING | 2020
Buy clothes, wear them, return them, get your money back. This practice, known as "wardrobing," costs the fashion industry an estimated $15 billion a year. DIESEL didn't try to crack down on it. Instead, they openly encouraged it.
エフエム群馬 | 思い出話キヌヨさん | 2022
The moment I saw the title "Reminiscing with Kinuyo," I felt something nostalgic and warm. How did a local radio station turn "reminiscing" into an ad? Winning the GRAND PRIX means something must have really clicked.
NATURA | The Amazon Greenventory | 2025
The assumption that the only way to profit from the Amazon is to cut down its trees? Drones and AI just proved that wrong.
LAURA SCUDDER DIV | SUPERMARKET | 1965
It's 1965, right around the time supermarkets were becoming part of everyday American life. This film, made by the California potato chip brand Laura Scudder together with DDB, won the Grand Prix.
COSMOPOLITAN OF LAS VEGAS | Hotel Digital Experience | 2011
In a Las Vegas hotel lobby stand eight LED columns running floor to ceiling. What plays on them isn't ads, it's art. This is the project that won the Grand Prix in the Design category at the 2011 Cannes Lions.
CBC | ABLA FAHITA | 2015
A puppet made for an ad got investigated by the state on terrorism charges, and still went on to win the Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes. This actually happened in Egypt.
GO OUTSIDE MAGAZINE | REPELLENT RADIO | 2012
A radio station in São Paulo secretly mixed a 15kHz tone into its music programming from 6 to 8pm. Humans can't hear it. But mosquitoes can. Since it mimics the sound of a dragonfly's wings—a mosquito's natural predator—the mosquitoes flee. Just by having the radio on, you get bug protection.
TODAY@APPLE | Today at Apple | 2018
At Cannes 2018, what Apple won wasn't for advertising. It won the Grand Prix for store experience — an award earned by giving up on being a "place to sell."
GODADDY | Act Like You Know | 2025
For its Super Bowl comeback after eight years away, GoDaddy didn't go for shock value or crude jokes. Instead, it turned the quiet anxiety of "faking it till you make it" into something genuinely funny.
AB INBEV | TagWords | 2018
What's printed on the billboard isn't a photo—it's a "search term." This one's pure genius.
P&G | THE TALK | 2018
What comes to mind when you hear "the talk"? Most people think of the conversation about sex. But for Black parents in America, it meant something else entirely: the conversation where you teach your child the reality of racism. From that one gap in meaning came a film that won the Grand Prix at Cannes.
PENNY | PRICE PACKS | 2025
In an age when prices feel impossible to predict, PENNY put the price itself—not quality claims—front and center on its packaging. In German food advertising, where touting quality is the norm, this was a pretty bold bet.
MAGNUM ICE CREAM | 7 DEADLY SINS: GIVE IN TO IT | 2002
Naming your ice cream after a sin, then boldly telling people to give in to it. This bold move by MAGNUM in 2002 was a massive hit in Australia, and it spread around the world.
CARLINGS | ADDRESS THE FUTURE | 2019
You buy clothes, wear them, take a photo, post it online. But what if those clothes never actually existed? In 2019, Norway's CARLINGS released the world's first fully digital clothing collection, and honestly, my first reaction was "wait, what?" But this campaign went on to win the first-ever Grand Prix in the Digital Craft category.
DOMINO’S PIZZA | YOU GOT 30 MINUTES | 2009
Domino's Pizza used to have a guarantee: free pizza if it didn't arrive within 30 minutes. This campaign brought that idea back to life in a completely different form. Not as a guarantee. As a gift.
NYC & CO. AND WARNER BROTHERS | Oasis Dig Out Your Soul In The Streets | 2009
In September 2008 (month 9), on the New York subway, a street musician was playing a brand-new Oasis song that hadn't even been released yet.
AEG | THE WORLD IS NOISY ENOUGH | 2009
In 2009, a slightly unusual billboard showed up on the streets of London. Advertising AEG's quiet washing machines, this billboard didn't just display an ad—it measured the surrounding noise levels in real time and kept sending that data to a website.
BURGER KING | THE MOLDY WHOPPER | 2020
A burger covered in mold became one of the most beautiful ads in the world. In 2020, Burger King released footage of a Whopper rotting over 35 days, with the tagline "The Beauty of No Artificial Preservatives." It broke a food-advertising taboo head-on.
COPI | ADDRESSPOLLUTION.ORG | 2020
When you buy a house, someone tells you if there's asbestos. But nobody tells you how dirty the air is. The moment I noticed that imbalance, I couldn't help but growl.
MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL | A MENU OF LIGHTS | 1982
1982: the moment Japanese advertising first won the Grand Prix at Cannes Lions. Matsushita Electric Industrial—now Panasonic—made this piece together with Hakuhodo. A historic work from more than 40 years ago.
SOL CEMENT | SIGHTWALKS | 2024
This is what happened when a cement company thought hard about what cement could actually do. Tap your cane on the ground, and the number of lines carved into the tile tells you what's there: "this is a bank," "this is a pharmacy." Two lines mean a bank, three mean a grocery store, four mean a pharmacy. Laid across the streets of Lima, Peru, it lets blind people walk the city on their own.
HELP REMEDIES | Help I Want to Save a Life | 2012
Open up a bandage, and inside is a bone marrow donor registration kit. The blood from your cut finger, just as it is, might be enough to save a life.
THE BANK OF ÅLAND | ÅLAND INDEX / BALTIC SEA PROJECT | 2017
Every time you pay with your card, your CO2 emissions arrive right alongside your bill. A small Nordic bank built the world's first system to do exactly that. It won the Grand Prix in the Cyber category at Cannes Lions in 2017, and today it's used by more than 90 banks in over 40 countries.
CANON | EOS PHOTOCHAINS | 2010
In 2010, Canon Australia turned photography, a solo hobby, into a game that connects people. This campaign won the Grand Prix in the Media category at Cannes Lions.
BJÖRK | NOTGET VR | 2017
Say "a music video in VR" and you probably picture something — but this probably goes beyond it. Six minutes where the experience changes every single time you watch. This piece won the Grand Prix in the Digital Craft category at Cannes Lions 2017.
CADBURY | GORILLA | 2008
A gorilla plays the drums. That's it. For 90 seconds, no product, no dialogue. Just drumming along to a Phil Collins song. And somehow, that was enough to make the whole world smile.
FUNERAL INSURANCE COMPANY DELA | Why Wait Until It's Too Late | 2013
A funeral insurance company stopped talking about funerals and started saying "say it today" instead. And that's what won the Media Grand Prix at Cannes. An ad that reaches this far without ever mentioning the product.
ABINBEV | Contract for Change | 2020
You'd think this was a beer commercial, but it turned out to be about a contract. And that contract was trying to change America's entire farming system. This is a story about an ad that didn't just talk about something — it became the mechanism itself.
VIRGIN | Warren | 2004
In 2004, young Australians fell hard for an "incredibly unappealing, single and desperate" dork. His name was Warren. Speaking straight to camera in dating-video style, he was all confidence and zero charm—and yet somehow, totally unlovable as he was, Warren wormed his way into youth culture and became a legendary character who pushed Virgin Mobile to its highest-ever market ranking.