Top 5 creative ads from Cannes Lions 2024: Xbox, Spotify, CeraVe, DoorDash, Orange

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity instructed its juries this year only to award purpose-driven work if the benefits to the brand were clear. And indeed, while many purpose campaigns were still honored, the upper echelon of winners featured a larger percentage of unapologetically commercial work for big brands. (When we did this same list last year, four of the top five campaigns were focused on purpose.) This was reflected in two Super Bowl campaigns that triumphed last week—for DoorDash and CeraVe. Both campaigns won a slew of Lions, including Grand Prix. And DoorDash even added the Titanium Grand Prix, an extraordinary showing for a campaign that was essentially a promo code on steroids. All of the Cannes Lions 2024 Grand Prix winners Below, check out the Grand Prix winners that picked up the most Lions across the week. You’ll see a purpose-driven effort at No. 1 (a campaign everyone knew would do well), but elsewhere it’s clear the jury choices played out as the festival had hoped. Cannes Lions coverage See all of the Grand Prix winners here Top 5 Grand Prix campaigns 5. Spotify: SpreadbeatsAgency: FCB New York For this B2B campaign, Spotify Advertising sent Microsoft Excel files to media buyers at advertising clients and prospects that featured a treat embedded in the document: an impressively coded music video made using Excel’s functions. The brilliantly nerdy effort won the Grand Prix in Digital Craft, along with eight other Lions: two golds, three silvers and three bronzes across Creative B2B, Creative Data, Digital Craft, Direct and Entertainment. 4. CeraVe: Michael CeraVeAgency: Ogilvy Ogilvy’s Super Bowl campaign for CeraVe featured weeks of seeded social media content leading up to the game along with an amusing in-game parody of fragrance ads—all ludicrously suggesting Michael Cera had invented the product. “Michael CeraVe” won the Grand Prix in Social & Influencer, and added seven other Lions as well: three golds, two silvers and three bronzes in Entertainment, Health & Wellness, Film, PR, Media and Social & Influencer. 3. Xbox: The Everyday TacticianAgency: McCann London McCann helped the small English soccer club Bromley FC recruit its next staff tactician from an untapped talent pool: gamers. Nathan Owolabi got the real-world job because he was so good at “Football Manager” on Xbox. He used the data skills honed while playing the game to help the club develop formations, find new strategies and uncover the opposition’s weaknesses (and Bromley FC did so well that it won the National League Playoffs in May and achieved promotion to the English Football League for the first time in 132 years). The campaign won eight Lions: the Grand Prix in Direct, the Grand Prix in Gaming Winners, a coveted Titanium Lion, one gold and four silvers across Brand Experience & Activation, Creative Data, Direct, Gaming, PR and Sport. Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here 2. DoorDash: DoorDash All the AdsAgency: Wieden+Kennedy Portland DoorDash showed how it delivers basically anything by sending every product advertised during the Super Bowl broadcast to one lucky winner. The campaign included a teaser film, social effort, influencer campaign and commercial on the Super Bowl itself. “DoorDash All the Ads” won eight Lions: the Titanium Grand Prix (the festival’s single top prize) along with two golds, four silvers and a bronze across Brand Experience & Activation, Direct, PR and Social & Influencer. 1. Orange: WoMen’s FootballAgency: Marcel Paris Marcel’s brilliant campaign for Orange, which used deepfake technology to reveal the prodigious talent of women soccer players, was the only campaign at Cannes Lions 2024 to break double digits in Lion wins. It picked up 10 Lions overall: the Grand Prix in Sport, the Grand Prix in Film, as well as three golds, two silvers and three bronzes across Entertainment, Film, PR, Social & Influencer and Sport. Also read: Inside the buzziest campaign at Cannes Cannes Lions coverage See all of the Grand Prix winners here Top 5 Grand Prix campaigns

The top 5 Grand Prix winners from Cannes Lions 2024

Featured Stories