The Entertainment and Craft Lions were mostly a triumph for big, global brands this year, with Adidas, Apple and Google among them. Jury presidents placed an emphasis on community, collaboration and belonging for Entertainment, while “human-made” was central to the Craft winners.
ENTERTAINMENT Grand Prix Adidas and Oasis created official merch for last year’s global tour, and were rewarded with two Cannes Grand Prix (as well as selling a lot of bucket hats and tops). Jury president Chris Beresford-Hill, CCO of BBDO Worldwide, said: “At a time when so many brands are trying to manufacture relevance, this was a reminder that the most powerful thing a brand can do is show up in the right moment, for the right community, with something worth caring about.”
MUSIC Grand Prix Two Grand Prix were awarded in the Entertainment Lions for Music. Adidas’s Oasis collab scored its second of the night, and Rosalia’s remarkable Berghain video by Canada Barcelona won the second. Jury president Matt Murphy, global CCO of 72andSunny, said: “We were looking for breakthrough collaborations between artists and culture. Ultimately, it came down to COMMITMENT. Going all in on an idea.”
GAMING Grand Prix “Copycats Welcome” for Clash Royale by David New York lured gamers back from rivals. Jury president Lolly Thomson, Joint global CCO at M+C Saatchi, called it a “radical… masterclass in value exchange… When you do something like that, the community takes over. You don’t need to shout. They do it for you.”
SPORT Grand Prix McCann Lima won the Grand Prix for a microdonations sponsorship initiative that gave small businesses a chance to support the historic but struggling football team, Club Deportivo Municipal. A thousand local companies got their name on the team’s shirt, gained access to players, and became official merch retailers.
Shannon Washington, CCO at 11 Ounces, said: “What got me is the sheer, simple ingenuity of it! Taking a club in crisis and turning that crisis into a thousand acts of belonging. The craft is exceptional, down to the math behind the pricing and the grid on the jersey itself… This is fandom doing the work that money used to do, and community deciding what the future of a club looks like.”
DESIGN Grand Prix Apple TV’s rebrand by TBWA\Media Arts Lab was described as “gloriously human-made… a beautiful rebellion at a time obsessed with tech threats.”
DIGITAL CRAFT Grand Prix The Grand Prix went to Project Genie for Google, an AI prototype that lets you generate and play in interactive 3D virtual worlds. Judges said it “reminds us that technology alone is never enough. The real breakthrough happens when creativity unlocks what technology can become.”
INDUSTRY CRAFT Grand Prix De l’onghi’s Tiny Coffee Shops by LOLA Madrid is described as a “stop motion marvel.”
