Here’s my Cannes 2025 shortlist; three that hit me in the gut (or the heart), and one that probably won’t win anything but absolutely deserves a pint.
The Ordinary: The Truth Should Be Ordinary (Uncommon)
The boldest thing in beauty this year? Honesty. No celebrities. No glossy skin. Just stark type, white space, and facts, laid bare on the street. The visuals feel more scientific journal than ad campaign. You get rat tails. Mouldy tomatoes. It’s a design system built to confront the category, not conform to it. It trusts the audience to stop and read, and that kind of creative restraint feels brave as hell.
Heinz: Trigger the Taste (W+K London)
This one didn’t make me hungry, it made me twitch. It turned taste into something primal: light, heat, static, anticipation. It feels like what hunger actually is. It’s messy and visceral and weird in all the right ways. And for a brand as established as Heinz, it gave them back a bit of danger.
Cadbury: Made to Share (VCCP)
This campaign isn’t clever, and that’s exactly why it works. A square of chocolate passed hand to hand. Packaging redesigned to reflect real life, like who cooked vs who cleaned. It’s generous, soft, and emotionally precise. The kind of warmth you can’t fake. Proof that a brand doesn’t need to shout to say something meaningful.
Taco Bell: Tacommodation (the Or)
Taco Bell gave a Leeds student a rent-free, fully Taco-fied flat, complete with menu boards, touchscreen ordering and trays like it’s a restaurant. All for the price of a £1.99 burrito. It’s weird. It’s brilliantly over the top. And it’s exactly what a brand like Taco Bell should be doing, showing up for its biggest fans, in a way no one asked for but everyone talked about. It won’t win in a jury room. But it smashed it in the group chat.
Harry Sandhu is a senior creative at Jung von Matt London
