FRIDAY JUNE 20 / 2025
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A PROJECT reworking closed captioning to better serve deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers has won the Brand Experience & Activation Grand Prix. In the most contested category of the 2025 Cannes Lions, with 2,337 entries, FCB Chicago’s ‘Caption With Intention’ — for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences — was a worthy winner. The work has already won this year’s Design and Digital Craft Grands Prix. The reimagined system synchronises subtitles with
Jury President Tara Ford
Dove: Ogilvy UK wins again
for ‘relentless reinvention’ THE WINNER of the 2025 Creative Strategy Grand Prix is Ogilvy UK for Dove’s ‘Real Beauty, how a soap brand created a global self-esteem movement’. Jury President Pats McDonald, global chief strategy officer, Dentsu Creative, Global said: “When you get a group of strategists together in a room, you might expect disagreements. But it was hard to argue about a campaign that has written the playbook on modern strategy for the last 20 years.” McDonald said Dove took “the simple, devastating in-
INSIDE:
Jury President Pats McDonald
sight that just 2% of women see themselves as beautiful and transformed beauty into a source of confidence. The campaign relentlessly reinvents itself for every generation and every shift in culture, all while embracing tech. It also open-sources its playbook for the rest of the industry.” The impact of the campaign goes well beyond purpose, having also driven the brand to spectacular heights. Today it is a $7.5bn brand active across 10 product categories. McDonald talked about the importance of the Creative
THURSDAY’S WINNERS Creative Business Transformation, Creative Effectiveness, Creative Strategy, Luxury, Brand Experience & Activation, Innovation and Creative Commerce
the words being spoken onscreen, but also uses different type sizes, weights and animation to signify the intonation — for example when people are shouting or whispering. It also uses different colours to ensure that the 466 million people who rely on closed captioning know who is speaking at any given time. “You can feel the difference in the experience. It’s more immersive, it’s more immediate,” said Jury President Tara Ford, chief creative officer at Droga5 London. TURN TO PAGE 2
Strategy category, which received a record-breaking 902 entries this year: “When facing so much uncertainty and change, it is important to stop and find the best strategy in work, because that is going to take us forward with confidence and optimism.” The Jury awarded five Gold Lions to campaigns from the UAE, Japan, France, Colombia and Brazil. Discussing criteria, McDonald said they were looking for entries that “know the audience and know algorithms, that embrace AI as a partner in joyful and provocative work with extraordinary ambition for what creative strategy can do. We wanted work that makes us optimistic about the future of the industry.”
A CAMPAIGN that reactivated expired food coupons for shoppers grappling with the costof-living crisis has won the 2025 Creative Commerce Grand Prix. ‘Preserved Promos’ was created by VML, New York, for Ziploc, which is best known for its foodstorage bags. A brand that preserves food was now preserving out-of-date food coupons as well. People could visit the campaign’s website and upload photos of their expired coupons to have them rejuvenated to be used next time they shopped — as long as they also had Ziploc products in their basket. Ziploc worked with more than 80 retailers with a network of more than 76,000 physical stores across the US where the reborn vouchers could be used, leading to a 5% sales lift for the brand. “It doesn’t get more commerce than this!” said Jury President Gabriel Schmitt, TURN TO PAGE 1
UNILEVER’S EGGLESTON BRACEY Shares how her company’s marketing ecosystem is democratising desire
DAVID DROGA ‘The right thing, for the right audience’
MEET THE WINNERS The third awards ceremony in pictures
ZAPPI’S NATALY KELLY Emotion is key to powerful campaigns
Jury President Gabriel Schmitt