Cannes Lions 2025: Creative Effectiveness winners 

Apple wins Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2025

Apple and TBWA\Media Arts Lab have won the Grand Prix for Creative Effectiveness for its long-running Shot on iPhone campaign. 

The tech brand kicked off Shot on iPhone in 2015 to spotlight user‑generated photography; all iPhone pics, none staged. The concept was simple: bold visuals and the tagline ‘Shot on iPhone’ on billboards, print and digital out-of-home globally.

Users tagged their work with #ShotoniPhone, and Apple curated top submissions for ads. It turned everyday users into ambassadors and generated millions of posts. Over time, Shot on iPhone evolved from a user showcase into a cultural force. Apple collaborated with directors like Kathryn Bigelow and Damien Chazelle, while film schools introduced iPhone courses. The work has appeared on Rolling Stone covers and in cinemas, including Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later.

It’s the most enduring and effective campaign for Apple and led to iPhone becoming the best selling smartphone in the world (according to Counterpoint 2025).

According to the jury president Andrea Diquez, global CEO at Gut, themes in the category ranged from witty, light-hearted creative to emotionally powerful work, and entries came from a broad range of geographies. But for the jury, Shot on iPhone was the clear choice: ‘It was a unanimous decision.’

Diquez said Shot on iPhone stood out as a campaign that balanced creativity, longevity and commercial success. ‘It’s a campaign that everybody knows… When a client commits to a long-term campaign and platform that is highly creative, that uses user-generated content, that has the product at the core and the technology at the core… it’s breakthrough, it’s relevant globally and locally… it’s just magic and it works.’

The jury also recognised how the campaign consistently evolved with culture, platforms and audiences over a decade, all while maintaining brand consistency and impact: ‘It had full funnel performance… it had everything.’

Creative Effectiveness Lions winners 

Don’t Drink Hertog Jan for Hertog Jan by Gut, Amsterdam

The Everyday Tactician: How Getting a Football Club Promoted Helped Xbox Take A Step Closer To The Future Of Gaming for Xbox by McCann, London

The Misheard Version for Specsavers by Golin, London



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