Creative highlights from Cannes Lions 2026
Every year, the Cannes Lions Festival brings together the best creative work from around the world - the most prestigious award show in the industry, where everybody wants to win. Submissions run into the hundreds of thousands, and only the top 2% actually take home a Lion. So when a piece of work wins, it really has been incredibly good that year.
Instead of going through categories, I want to share the themes I saw on the ground this year - the currents running through the best work of 2026.
Real as a competitive advantage
It’s interesting in the world today, whether in digital or otherwise, AI has been at the top of everyone's mind for two or three years now. And you can tell now that there's a counter-current - a current for the real, for the non-polished, for the less manufactured, against everything that AI and digital will bring into our world. No one's going out there and fighting against it outright, but a lot of the ideas that stood out are clearly pushing against that tension, and are accelerating emotionally because of it.
Shot Without Permission - Amstel (INGO Amsterdam & Ogilvy Amsterdam)
One example of that is this campaign, which is called Shot Without Permission. What they did is base it on the insight - the truth that friendship can be faked. It was an experiment - they called it an experiment. It wasn't a bar - well, it was one bar, actually a very controlled environment, and they shot real people to try to get their real emotion. That's one example of how a lot of big brands are using this tension against the unreal, the fake, the posed.
McDonald's - Camera Rolls (Leo, London)
Here's another really good example from Leo UK: Camera Rolls for McDonald's. A lot of this is about making sure that you believe what you see - that everything is real, everything is not posed. They basically launched it with an influencer, and then started asking people to share their camera rolls with them. The only thing that was branded was curated to make sure there wasn't anything weird in it, but everything else they kept was absolutely authenticated. A fantastic campaign.
Humanity is at a moment
The other reflection I had was that humanity is at a moment. It's very close to the last theme, but in this case it's a little bit more about defending people and making sure that we stand for real human connection and being together as people.
Coca-Cola - The Last Coke in the Desert (VML, New York / VML, São Paulo / VML, Mexico City)
Here's an example by Coca-Cola. One of my favourite expressions in Spanish is "la última Coca del desierto" - that's super important, and the campaign shows how important they are. That's an example of a campaign celebrating humanity, celebrating people. And interestingly, they don't do it by standing against anything - no one's saying "I'm against AI." But it's everywhere.
Only the brave stand out
There's a lot of content out there, more than ever - only the brave get noticed. This is something we talk about all the time - brands don't really want to face reality, but if you're not brave, you don't stand out. Coinbase - Everybody
Coinbase (Isle of Any)
This next one is a very different tone from the Coca-Cola one. This was the Super Bowl ad - everyone in the United States was singing along to it at the same time. It was a shared experience, at a time where there aren't that many left, and they used that to actually make people feel something we hadn't felt in a long time. Beautiful, beautiful idea.
Columbia Sportswear - Expedition Impossible (adam&eve\TBWA, London)
This piece is actually my favourite that I saw here. It's a big stunt. The CEO of the company jumped in, saying if you can prove the Earth is flat, the company's yours, everything. The case is phenomenal - they win all the way, which is great to see. They're audacious, and the client wasn't afraid to actually back an idea that could be risky.
Skinny Mobile (Colenso BBDO, Auckland)
Skinny Mobile - they're just absolutely crazy with their advertising. It's worth just Googling Skinny Mobile every year - they go from one better campaign to another. To stand out, you have to be brave. If you're not going to be brave, you have to spend a lot of money instead.
Brands need to feel alive
Nowadays, brands that just sit back and put out another message for people - no, they need to participate in culture. They need to be ready to interact with whatever's going on in the world. The bigger the moment you interact with, the more people are going to notice you.
Popeyes - Pope Yes (Gut, Miami)
This, to me, is one of the best examples this year, for a brand that is a fried chicken brand called Popeyes. They were really smart to jump into a really big moment. Your brand has to be alive, has to stay alert to what's happening in the world. That is not easy - you have to be able to do these kinds of things, and that takes organisation, that takes trust.
KitKat - The KitKat Heist (VML, London / Burson, London)
The next one is from the UK, in partnership with a local PR agency. They did a fantastic job with an event that was not expected. What started as a crime story just turned into one of the most genius marketing moments. You got people checking it, posting it online, news covering it. They could have just been a piece of news, but the marketing team jumped in, the agency jumped in, and created an interactive experience out of it.
McDonald's - The Filet-O-Fish Facebook Society of 2012 (Leo, London)
It's a fantastic use of a niche audience. McDonald's is so good at marketing - I don't think there's anyone better, really, when you think about it. They have one track which is McDonald's at Night, and another called Unsung Heroes, and this is one of them. They're constantly putting out campaigns across all sorts of tracks, which I think is fantastic.
And closer to home: Mail Unleashed Live at Cannes
This year, we took Mail Unleashed live for the first time right there at Cannes. Rory sat down with Andrew Tindall from System1, Claire Sadler from the British Heart Foundation, and Kate Mackie from EY for an honest conversation about where direct mail sits in today's media mix - trust, attention, the JICMAIL data, all of it. It was a brilliant moment for us, and a genuinely great conversation. Worth watching in full if you missed it live.
Action is worth a thousand words
Building brands by doing is one of the most interesting and powerful ways of building a brand. Instead of just talking, talking, talking, you actually do something.
Vaseline - Vaseline Originals (Ogilvy Singapore)
One of the brands that won big last year was Vaseline, with something called Vaseline Certified. What they did is tap into a trend on social media. A lot of people were showing skincare "hacks," and some of them weren't real or true, some were actually dangerous, and some were really good. Vaseline tested them in their labs and told you which ones to stay away from. It won the Grand Prix last year - it was huge. This year, they followed up in a fantastic way, called Vaseline Originals. Fantastic piece of work and this one is also about being alive as a brand, actually interacting with you. You like a brand a lot more because it's not afraid to get out of its lane and interact with people.
Anthropic (Claude) - A Time and a Place (Mother, London)
The next one is still building brands by doing, but sometimes you're lucky that the brand actually does something tremendously meaningful, and it's important that the marketing team, the advertising, and the creative agency are able to do something really important about it. The brand took an important action, and then the creative agency, with the marketing team, promoted it in the best way they could - in the middle of a Super Bowl.
To be heard, you need to listen
Your audience needs to see and feel that you are listening to them, and that you understand what they want. It's really important to know your audience, even if you have to go really niche to prove it.
Skittles - Gaming Flute (TBWA\Chiat\Day, Chicago)
It's interesting that the target audience skews younger, but Skittles doesn't have to worry about the same things other brands might. Fantastic piece of work. A real lesson in knowing exactly who you're talking to.
Out-of-home belongs to the purist
The out-of-home that works is the out-of-home that does the simple thing: a quick, easy-to-understand concept, with the least amount of elements on the page.
Dunkin' - At Home (BBH, USA)
That needs to be celebrated - it's a reminder for us to actually defend our opinions, to leave stuff out, to put in the minimum needed to make the impact.
British Airways (Uncommon Creative Studio, London)
You combine that with how well known your brand is, and it just reinforces its position. This one felt real. It's not posed, it's not trying to force you to feel something, it lets you actually feel it. Even the first frame, the little kid looking through the window in the morning – phenomenal. There's an emotion immediately. It's a really good example of the least amount of elements possible to tell the story.
No art, no glory
If you want people to engage with your longer story, you'd better make sure you're creating art for them. No one wants to spend time on long-form stories if there isn't the same amount of craft that there is in the entertainment we actually choose to watch.
When you're fighting to have the best talent on something, when you're fighting to have it made a certain way, every choice you make is affecting how people are going to feel. These people could have chosen to cut corners. They did not. It takes an entire culture that doesn't cut corners, and sells that with conviction, to make a big difference.
On - "Shape of Dreams" (In-house with director Spike Jonze, US)
Here's another one from the other end of that spectrum, using some of the most expensive people in the world: the best directors out there, and then the stars. They're a super mainstream brand, but they chose to do everything with craft - there's no AI, no special effects. This is pure art, written and shot entirely by the director. It's all real, it's all about making sure there's no "effect" between you and your audience. Music is fundamental to creating emotion. A good script fitted with some music, in a style that's almost like a musical, always works.
Lucas is an international creative leader who has driven the creative output of network agencies, independent agencies, pure-play digital shops, and film production houses across multiple continents.
He is Chief Creative Officer at The Gate London, part of the MSQ group. Previously, he led the creative department at JWT’s flagship London office as Executive Creative Director, and served as CCO of Possible, WPP’s largest global digital network, across both the US and the UK.
His work has been recognized globally by leading festivals, including Cannes Lions, D&AD, and the Clios, across every channel. It regularly tops industry rankings, with accolades such as AdAge’s Global Viral Video of the Year, Campaign’s Ad of the Month, and Creative Review’s Ad of the Week
