I use award winners as creative study material, not as commandments. After years inside advertising, I am more interested in the mechanism beneath the case film than the trophy itself: what changed, why the brand had permission to do it, and whether the idea would still make sense without the awards narrative. I did not work on these campaigns. My judgments are personal.
Cannes Lions awarded 34 Grands Prix across 32 categories in 2023. Rather than treating the winners as a trophy list, I look at eight campaigns that show distinct strategic mechanisms marketers can actually study: reframing a category, designing participation, turning a product feature into a story, and solving a real-world barrier.
Photo: Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, photographed by Jorge Láscar. CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Key takeaway: The most useful Cannes winners are not templates to copy. Study the mechanism behind the work—what behavior it changed, what barrier it removed, or what cultural tension it made visible—then decide whether that mechanism fits your own audience and business problem.
1. British Airways — A British Original
British Airways and Uncommon Creative Studio built A British Original around a simple strategic shift: instead of advertising destinations, the campaign focused on why people travel. The work appeared in hundreds of outdoor, print, digital and film executions, creating variety without losing the central idea. Cannes Lions awarded it the 2023 Outdoor Grand Prix.
What I would study: a strong platform can generate many executions because the organizing thought is broader than any single ad. The campaign gives marketers a useful test: if the idea disappears when the headline changes, it may be an execution rather than a platform.
Campaign reference: British Airways on A British Original.
2. Microsoft — ADLaM: An Alphabet to Preserve a Culture
Microsoft and McCann New York helped bring ADLaM—a writing system created for the Fulani language Pulaar—into digital use, including Microsoft 365, desktop and mobile environments. The work won Grands Prix in both Design and Creative Business Transformation.
What I would study: the brand role was functional, not decorative. Microsoft used its product ecosystem to remove a communication barrier. That makes the idea stronger than a message about inclusion because the product itself participates in the solution.
Good to know: ADLaM is a useful example of brand purpose becoming product behavior. The lesson is not that every campaign needs a social cause; it is that purpose claims are more credible when the company changes a tool, service, policy or experience.
Campaign reference: Cannes Lions on ADLaM.
3. Samsung — Flipvertising
Samsung Australia and CHEP Network reversed the usual logic of targeting. Instead of trying to make an ad find the audience, Flipvertising challenged Gen Z participants to make Samsung ads find them by deliberately training their feeds and search behavior. Cannes Lions awarded the campaign the Social & Influencer Grand Prix.
What I would study: participation was built into the media mechanism. The audience did not merely watch a message; they interacted with the targeting system itself. That is a useful distinction when evaluating supposedly interactive work.
Campaign reference: Cannes Lions on Flipvertising.
4. adidas — Runner 321
Runner 321 centered on athlete Chris Nikic and bib number 321, a reference to trisomy 21. Cannes Lions describes the work as bringing inclusivity to running by addressing the lack of representation of people with Down syndrome in sport, and awarded it the 2023 Direct Grand Prix.
What I would study: the campaign created a repeatable piece of infrastructure, not just a one-time message. A symbolic number became a concrete action that event organizers could adopt.
Expert tip: When assessing cause-led creative, look for the behavior the campaign asks institutions, customers or the brand itself to change. A visible mechanism—such as a reserved race bib, a redesigned service or a new access point—is easier to evaluate than awareness alone.
Campaign reference: Cannes Lions on Runner 321.
5. Dove — #TurnYourBack
Dove, Ogilvy and DAVID responded to the spread of TikTok's Bold Glamour beauty filter by asking creators and users to literally turn their backs to it. Cannes Lions awarded #TurnYourBack the 2023 Media Grand Prix.
What I would study: speed and brand consistency. The idea worked because it connected a live platform behavior to Dove's long-running position against unrealistic beauty standards. A fast response is more defensible when it extends an established brand belief rather than borrowing a trend.
Campaign reference: Ogilvy on #TurnYourBack.
6. CALM x ITV — The Last Photo
The Last Photo, created by adam&eveDDB for the Campaign Against Living Miserably and ITV, used photographs of people taken shortly before they died by suicide to challenge assumptions about what suicidal distress looks like. The work won one of the two 2023 Film Grands Prix.
What I would study: the campaign's reveal forces the audience to confront a false visual shortcut. The creative device is inseparable from the message: ordinary-looking photographs are the evidence that appearance alone cannot reliably reveal suicidal intent.
Warning: Sensitive work should not be treated as a shortcut to emotional impact. If a campaign involves suicide, health, trauma or vulnerable groups, evaluate consent, safeguarding, accuracy and the service offered to the audience—not only the creative idea or award result.
Campaign reference: Cannes Lions' 2023 Film winner listing.
7. Government of Tuvalu — The First Digital Nation
Tuvalu and The Monkeys, part of Accenture Song, used a digital-replica concept to dramatize a practical sovereignty problem created by rising seas: what happens to a nation if physical territory becomes uninhabitable or disappears? The work won the Dan Wieden Titanium Grand Prix.
What I would study: the campaign moved beyond communications into policy and institutional questions. Its power came from connecting a vivid creative artifact—the digital nation—to a real legal and cultural problem involving borders, identity and statehood.
Campaign reference: Accenture Song on The First Digital Nation.
8. Renault — Plug Inn
Renault and Publicis Conseil developed Plug Inn as a peer-to-peer charging service that lets electric-vehicle drivers locate, reserve and pay to use private charging points. Renault says the campaign won the 2023 Creative Strategy Grand Prix, alongside additional Lions.
What I would study: the strategy addressed adoption friction instead of advertising around it. For product marketers, that is a valuable distinction. Sometimes the strongest campaign idea is a service that removes a reason not to buy or use the product.
Campaign reference: Renault on Plug Inn.
What these eight winners have in common
The campaigns are very different, but several patterns repeat:
- They turn strategy into an observable mechanism, not only a message.
- They give the brand a credible role in the idea.
- They make participation, utility or behavior part of the execution.
- They are easy to explain without reproducing the entire case-study film.
- They separate the creative idea from proof of business impact.
That last point matters. Cannes recognition is evidence that juries rated the work highly against award criteria; it is not, by itself, proof that a campaign caused sales, profit, brand lift or long-term behavior change.
How to use award-winning case studies without copying them
Start with the business or audience problem, then identify the mechanism the winner used. Ask whether your problem needs a platform, a product change, a media behavior, a participation mechanic, a service layer or a new institutional action. Borrow the diagnostic question, not the surface execution.
For a broader view of the campaign principles behind this article, read 11 Innovative Marketing Campaigns from 2025 Worth Studying.
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