Cannes Lions Contenders 2025 /

With Cannes Lions just around the corner, the Contagious team has once again sifted through the year's boldest, sharpest and most creatively ambitious campaigns to pick the ones we think are headed for the jury’s shortlist – or should be.

We do this because we spend most of our time dissecting what makes great work great. But also because it’s fun to back a winner, and even more fun to be right.

You wouldn’t expect a pub handover on a remote Irish island to spark a global search. But then, most pubs don’t come with a 155-year backstory and a name requirement.

McLoughlin’s Bar on Achill Island, run by the same family for generations, was about to close its doors for good. The current owner, Josie, had no one left to take it on, but he was keen for the McLoughlin name to live on above the door. So beer brand Heineken stepped in, not with a campaign about closure, but a call-out to McLoughlins around the world to keep the story going.

It’s a charming stunt, but also a smart one. Ireland’s pub culture carries international emotional weight. It’s nostalgic, communal and aligned with Heineken’s ongoing support of the on-trade. By stepping in to protect one pub, Heineken positions itself as a brand that doesn’t just advertise around culture but actively supports it. The specificity of the story makes it feel authentic and the global scale makes it feel big. It also gives the brand something most beer ads don’t: heart without sentimentality.

Importantly, this is not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. It’s a brand using its weight to keep something alive and getting a great story out of it in the process.

It goes to show that when a brand roots itself in a real place, with real people and a bit of humour, the story practically tells itself. Heineken might not have found their next McLoughlin yet, but it has already brewed up a Cannes Lion-worthy idea.

Adam Richmond, deputy editor

This rallying cry for workers to protect their mental health is joyful, (whisper it) purposeful and successful. It’s also perfectly on brand for a company whose name is an acronym for ‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’ (Anima Sana In Corpore Sano).

Beyond the campaign film, the brand created the first employment laws for workers’ movement, something that companies across 37 countries have now implemented into their own staff contracts – meaning this is also a potential shoo-in for a B2B Grand Prix.

The 2.3 billion in earned media reach and the fact it was shared and endorsed by the director of the World Health Organisation probably won’t hurt its chances in PR, either.

There’s a load of impressive results in the case study video but one that’s missing is this gem from System 1’s Andrew Tindall via LinkedIn: ‘It's the best ad we've found so far at leaving viewers feeling intensely positive. And at holding attention. Out of hundreds of ads.’

So full marks on winning the battle for attention but bonus points for a campaign designed to protect people’s mental health that makes them feel better than any other ad.

Alex Jenkins, editorial director

When you’re looking back at the best campaigns of the year, you often need a reminder of what happened, who was behind it, and why it worked. Not for this one – it falls into the ‘does exactly what it says on the tin’ category.

That aversion to euphemism is a throughline in this behaviour-change campaign, which set out to break the herpes stigma in New Zealand and successfully pushed the country from ninth to first place on a global leaderboard of places to have the virus.

It’s got it all: a noble cause, a bespoke live index, humorous educational content delivered by Kiwi celebs and giant billboards that say ‘herpes’.

But best of all, it pushed the needle, cracking a stigma that the New Zealand Herpes Foundation has been fighting for 20 years.

In a country where 30% of those diagnosed with herpes experience depressive or suicidal thoughts, this campaign could save lives. If that’s not Grand Prix material, I don’t know what is.

Phoebe O’Connell, senior writer/analyst

I recently decided that this is my favourite campaign of all time, and that was when I thought it was just another funny ad from Thailand.

So imagine my joy when I discovered that there was a considered strategy behind it – one that blends cultural fluency, absurd comedy and a legit business challenge.

KFC wanted to be considered as a lunch option in a landscape that favours local eateries run by Thai ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’. So it created chicken and rice bowls, combining its core product with a Thai staple. But how does a Kentucky Fried Chicken brand sell rice to Thais?

First, transform your iconic mascot, Colonel Sanders, into a kindly Thai Loong (uncle). Then, create an exceedingly funny and absurd film about lunchtime choice paralysis. Finally, go viral and sell a shit-load of chicken rice bowls.

This isn’t just my ‘Cannes Contender’ – this is an ad I’ve described scene by scene at the pub. An ad from another country for a product I can’t access and a target audience that doesn’t include me. Sounds like a Grand Prix winner to me.

Phoebe O’Connell, senior writer/analyst

Everyone knows making the perfect slice of toast is part science, part dark art. Bread type, toaster model, dial settings – the variables are endless. But thanks to Vogel’s Certified Toasters campaign, Kiwis can stop playing burnt-bread roulette.

The idea was simple, even if the execution wasn’t. Vogel’s tested its bread on every toaster sold by national retailer The Warehouse, to find the precise setting for the perfect slice. Then it printed that setting on stickers and slapped them on the side of each toaster in-store.

The result? A 64% sales bump for Vogel’s in Warehouse stores, and a nation of toast lovers who finally know what number to trust.

I love ideas that go the extra mile in the name of science. In 1969, we put a man on the moon. In 1989, we created the World Wide Web. And in 2024, Vogel’s solved toast.

Sunil Bajaj, senior writer/analyst

The beauty and skincare space is more crowded than ever. Yet, 155-year-old Vaseline has weathered the storm of peptides-rich influencer brands flooding Sephora shelves by spotlighting underrepresented communities in various territories.

Addressing unmet skincare needs has earned the petroleum jelly pioneer a long-lasting place in people’s cabinets and Cannes jury rooms alike – See My Skin took home Gold Lions in 2022 and 2023, and Body Transition Lotion snagged a Grand Prix in 2024.

Vaseline’s creative roll hasn’t slowed down, and the work it’s put out since last year’s Lions is as deserving of juries’ attention. Vaseline Verified, especially, is a banger of a campaign that saw the skincare brand turn viral DIY internet hacks into science-backed product benefits. Rather than interrupt conversations on social media, the brand stepped back and listened to what its customers said about its products. Then, it joined in a way that adds clear value to them and builds lasting trust – by confirming which tips worked, and which didn’t. A masterclass in co-creation, the campaign gets TikTok not just as a platform but as a search engine and demonstrates something we wish more marketers understood: on socials, your audience will tell you what they want from you – if, like Vaseline, you’re smart enough to listen.

Manon Royet, senior researcher

Japan is a country rich in both culture and tradition, and as is often the case, those two things don’t always move at the same speed.

Take the law that requires married couples to share the same surname. In 95% of cases, that means women give up theirs. Gender equality organisation Asuniwa wanted to show just how absurd that is, so it ran the numbers. If nothing changes, by the year 2531, everyone in Japan will be called Sato.

That stat alone is brilliant. It is ridiculous enough to go viral, but grounded in a real critique of outdated policy. Then came the clever bit. As part of the SATO 2531 campaign, 40 companies, artists, sports teams and even manga characters temporarily took on the surname Sato. The Tokyo BB basketball team joined in, with every player wearing a jersey printed with the same name, turning a policy quirk into a full-blown identity crisis.

It hit every mark: public pressure, earned media, institutional discomfort and just enough humour to keep it from being ignored.

The government may still be dragging its feet, but public support now sits at 73%, and the new prime minister backs reform. With any luck, the Cannes jury will reach a verdict a little faster than the Japanese legal system.

Sunil Bajaj, senior writer/analyst

Over the past two years I’ve lost countless hours reviewing campaigns that make a fuss about the most mildly entertaining and impactful uses of AI.

Now, we’re hardly saving lives here, but if AI is going to waste anyone’s time shouldn’t it be someone a little more sinister? Like the scum… excuse my Freudian slip… scammers attempting to rip off our elderly relatives and gullible selves?

That at least is something that O2 saw as an appropriate use of the tech, using AI to create a scambaiting granny named Daisy. The mechanics of the campaign were beautifully simple. Daisy’s number was seeded into databases at scam call centres. For every minute they spent talking to her, they couldn’t be swindling anyone in the real world.

The conversational AI had all the hallmarks of any blue-rinsed superhero, tediously garrulous and utterly crippled by the kryptonite of a two-factor authentication – the perfect combination to tease grifters to painfully persevere for hours on end.

The campaign is quite gratifying and amusing, (Daisy held some fraudsters on the line for 50 minutes rambling about her knitting), but it’s also a great way for O2 to showcase the innovative ways it’s using technology to keep its customers safe.

The campaign earned 1.7 billion impressions, driven by 1,800 global media features. In total it amassed an Advertising Value Equivalent of £36m from a media spend of just £20,000. Jurors, that’s more than double the financial haul of the silver-haired thieves behind the Hatton Garden Diamond Heist, reward this pensioner just as handsomely… albeit save the prison sentence for the fraudsters.

Alex Poultney, writer/analyst

Haunted house peanut butter homicides. Creepy remixes of vintage TV commercials. Psychedelic bopping peanut butter cookies. That’s just a small sample of US cookie brand Nutter Butter’s TikTok feed. And I am here for all of it.

For a brand that has been around since the 1960s, but hasn’t invested in advertising in decades, it’s amazing how Nutter Butter has captured the attention of the brain-rot generation. No one understood what the hell was going on with the brand’s TikTok content, but everyone was talking about it. It drove cultural relevance and actually made people pick up this long-forgotten cookie brand off the shelves, with sales among Gen Z household increasing by 16.5% year-on-year.

This deserves to bring home metal because it is, as our illustrious co-founder Paul Kemp-Robertson likes to say, ‘contagious with a small c’. The one thing that it has going against it is that it’s hard to convey just how insane this content is in a 2-minute case study. But if the Cannes Lions jurors log onto TikTok there’s no question they’ll get sucked into the Nutter Butter fever dream like everyone else.

Chloe Markowicz, editor

At Contagious, we don’t tend to focus on craft. Of course we care about well-executed work, but we’re more often impressed by strategic brilliance and creative innovation. And though this campaign from German discount supermarket Penny is designed-focused, it’s pretty smart, not just pretty.

This is design with purpose. It sends a clear message about Penny’s commitment to price stability and cements its identity as a value retailer. As Werner Hesser Quack, Penny’s head of brand marketing, says in the case study: ‘If you print it on the packaging you can’t change it, that’s our promise to our consumers’.

The disruptive packaging stands out on the shelf, making it easier for customers to find Penny’s low-cost, own-brand products. It’s eye-catching design that looks premium and sends a message that cheap doesn’t mean crap.

Advertisers are often told that it’s a mistake to focus too much on functional benefits like price. But this campaign highlights price, as well as conveying an emotional message about trust. Penny is telling Germans that it has their back and is taking a stand against inflation when it comes to their most popular products. That’s a message I think the Cannes jury can buy into.

Chloe Markowicz, editor

While I wouldn’t potter around The National Gallery screaming ‘WHAT’S THE BUSINESS OBJECTIVE?’, at Cannes Lions I do think art should deliver on more than just the craft – it should have a genuine impact on business.

It becomes a bit sad when assessing categories like Film, but thankfully this year one campaign delivered big time for the brand while being so genuinely committed to craft that it could have been picking up awards in Cannes a month earlier.

To call Night Fishing a campaign is probably a bit of an insult. The 13-minute short film from Hyundai and Innocean is a genuine international award-winning movie in its own right. Shot entirely using the seven onboard cameras on the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the flick was an innovative and entertaining way to show off the product features of Hyundai’s latest EV. Perhaps most importantly though, because Hyundai handed off almost all creative control to the director, and only showed the brand in the end-credits, it truly felt like a film. For that reason, unlike other branded content, people actually watched it.

Showing in cinemas, with tickets priced at just $1, the sci-fi snack movie was so popular with Gen Z and millennials that it ranked sixth at the box office in its first week and had its run in movie theatres extended from two weeks to five weeks.

Because Night Fishing kickstarted conversations in culture about the future of short films in Korean cinema, its success translated back to the brand. Masses of organic PR meant dealership visits increased by 126%, while test drive requests for the Ioniq model jumped by 155%. For once, ‘branded’ content had people calling for more. If that’s not worthy of a Grand Prix then we might all have lost touch.

Alex Poultney, writer/analyst

David vs Goliath, Frodo vs Sauron, Katniss vs the Capitol – there’s nothing quite like a good underdog story. So, when I came across Heetch’s Choose Uber campaign, where the French ride-hailing challenger urged tourists at the Paris 2024 Olympics to use its biggest competitor, I knew it was something special.

What impresses here is Heetch didn’t name-drop Uber just for PR buzz. There was real strategy behind the move: the brand and its agency, BETC Paris, wanted to remind locals that Heetch is one of their own, helping them navigate a chaotic summer as Paris fills with tourists and public transport strains at the seams. By taking aim at the biggest player, the message was clear: Heetch is for locals, Uber is for out-of-towners.

As Olivier Aumard, executive creative director at BETC, Paris, told Contagious, ‘As a challenger, it’s always a solution to say, “Let’s attack the biggest one.” Yes, it’s good to do it, but you have to find the perfect idea. When you use the competitor as a tool, it has to be legitimate.’

The campaign resulted in a 37% increase in local clients, and if the Parisians loved it, I have no doubt Cannes Lions will too.

Melanie Valenzia, senior researcher

I can’t say what I’d crave after childbirth, but if 39% of UK mums say a burger hits the spot, who am I to argue with science? Burger King’s Bundles of Joy campaign took this insight – gathered via Mumsnet, no less – and turned it into one of the most unexpectedly honest moments in fast food marketing.

Launched on the UK’s busiest birth day (26 September), the campaign showed real mums tucking into Whoppers post-labour, and even set up a hotline to courier burgers straight to hospital beds. No actors or airbrushing, just mothers, burgers, and a moment of well-earned relief.

It prompted some debate – because few things divide opinion quite like motherhood, meat and marketing – but it also clearly resonated (because if you’ve just brought a human into the world, you should probably get to eat whatever you want). The campaign delivered 300 million earned impressions, and in the week after launch, Burger King saw a 15% rise in families dining in and an 18% bump in takeaway orders with kids.

It’s sharp work: grounded, human and hard to ignore. By showing up with food instead of fanfare, Burger King found a moment that’s hard to beat for relevance and reward. This one’s got all the right ingredients for a Cannes serving.

Alice Liow-Yune-Loy, senior researcher

I’m a sucker for ads with cinematic scope and quiet confidence. Especially when they know exactly what they’re doing and trust the audience to get it. Burberry’s It’s Always Burberry Weather does just that, turning a British cliché into a fashion moodboard that feels more Richard Curtis than high fashion.

Launched in October 2024, the ad series is a beautifully shot and cast love letter to Britain’s famously unpredictable ‘four-seasons-in-a-day’ weather.

The stars span from film to football, fashion to music: Barry Keoghan and Olivia Colman for the prestige crowd, Little Simz for the culture kids, Cole Palmer and Eberechi Eze for footie fans, Zhang Jingyi for luxury aficionados and tastemakers. Each brings something different, but all deliver the same affable energy, navigating daily life with charm, humour and very good coats.

The Valentine’s follow-up, London in Love, builds on the idea, with Kate Winslet and Naomi Campbell bringing added star power. It’s a campaign that makes Burberry feel desirable, grounded and culturally fluent, even as the brand sits firmly out of reach.

The brand recently posted a £66m loss, down from a profit of £383m, as luxury continues to soften worldwide. If Burberry’s going to turn things around, it won’t be through hype or reinvention, it’ll be through work like this, that makes the product feel iconic again.

Adam Richmond, deputy editor