Cannes Lions 2025: Innovation winners /

Spotify and the Museum for the United Nations won the Grand Prix for Innovation at Cannes Lions 2025 for the Sounds Right campaign, created by AKQA Copenhagen.

The campaign credits ‘Nature’ as an official artist on streaming platforms. Tracks feature ecosystem recordings alongside human musicians. Each stream generates royalties, channelled through EarthPercent, to fund conservation in critical ecosystems.

Launched globally around Earth Day in April 2024, the campaign included collaborations with artists like David Bowie, Ellie Goulding and V of BTS. It ran Spotify in-app promos, OOH displays and a custom website to explain the model and direct fans to the ‘Feat. NATURE playlist’.

The project aims to reach hundreds of millions, with ongoing releases and royalty-funded support for restoration in the Amazon, Andes and Indo-Burma.

Jury president Courtney Brown Warren, chief marketing officer at Kickstarter, highlighted a strong mix of work spanning both large and small brands, and praised the category’s growing focus on innovation. ‘We saw sustainability that wasn’t so much about just stopping using things, but [reusing] of materials. We saw really great creative thinking and pushing the boundaries in terms of creative thinking and partnering with interesting brands and existing technology.’

She explained that the Grand Prix winning campaign was chosen for its originality, real-world impact and potential to scale. ‘This campaign stood out because it was just innovative thinking, honestly,’ she said. ‘They came up with a really interesting way to drive royalties and to take that… and put it back into nature conservation.’ She added, ‘We saw that it could have real world long-term impact, and that’s what we were looking for.’

Caption With Intention for Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Rakish and Chicago Hearing Society by FCB Chicago