What Cannes Lions 2025 Reveals About the New Rules of Brand Building

Cannes Lions is one of the world’s leading festivals of creativity. Often described as a global showcase for problem-solving, it brings together brands and creators from around the world, presenting ideas that redefine how companies show up in society.
This year, LENS visited Cannes alongside our clients to experience firsthand where the future of advertising is heading.

Five Lessons from Cannes

Among the many sessions at last year’s Cannes Lions, two stood out in particular: those featuring AB InBev CMO Marcel Marcondes and Unilever Chief Growth & Marketing Officer Esi Eggleston Bracey. 
Both speakers looked beyond the conventional boundaries of advertising and focused on a more fundamental question: how can brands become meaningfully embedded in people’s lives and cultures? 
Marcondes emphasized that brands should become architects of memorable experiences. Rather than chasing short-lived attention, they need to design experiences that blend naturally into everyday life and are genuinely appreciated by the people they serve. 
Bracey, meanwhile, highlighted the importance of retaining a distinctly human quality in the age of AI. She argued that brands must become “SASSY”: combining science, aesthetics, sensory appeal, shareability, and a youthful spirit. 
Their perspectives strongly resonate with the principles that LENS intends to bring to future projects. 

1.Experience Is Becoming the Core Design Principle of Brands
・Advertising is evolving from a collection of individual initiatives into the design of meaningful experiences.
・Brands should become providers of experiences that remain in people’s memories.
・Spectacle is not always what stays with people. Experiences that blend seamlessly into everyday life often leave the strongest impression.

2.Innovation x Emotion Creates a New Role for Brands
・Creativity grounded in human emotion is increasingly valued alongside technological and systemic innovation.
・Actions that genuinely benefit people are embraced not as advertisements, but as stories worth sharing.

3.Media Should Blend In, Not Interrupt
・The new form of advertising exists naturally within news, social media, and the user experience.
・By increasing discoverability, participation, and empathy, advertising can become part of culture rather than merely a temporary talking point.

4. The Shift from Being Chosen by People to Being Chosen by AI
・Search engines, recommendation systems, and AI assistants are playing an increasingly significant role in purchasing decisions.
・This makes it more important than ever for brands to demonstrate consistent trustworthiness and a clearly defined character through their behavior. 

5. “SASSY” Is a Framework for Shaping Desire in the AI Era SASSY
・stands for Science, Aesthetics, Sensorial, Shared, and Young Spirit.
・By combining scientific credibility, aesthetic sensitivity, sensory appeal, shareability, and cultural relevance, brands can inspire desire.
・To become a brand that people choose instinctively, SASSY must be designed intentionally.  

These five lessons are more than a summary of current trends. They serve as a practical compass for LENS as we develop social creativity that resonates both in Japan and internationally.
We aim to connect the perspectives we gained in Cannes with Japan’s distinctive cultural context and social challenges, transforming them into ideas that meet global standard.

Award-Winning Work That Brings These Ideas to Life 

IKEA「U UP?」　
Designing the Experience  

To promote IKEA mattresses in Canada, where product awareness remained relatively low, the campaign focused on a moment when people were most receptive: late at night.
Using the casual message “u up?”, a phrase commonly exchanged among younger audiences, the campaign reached people struggling to sleep and offered them an immediate discount.
Rather than interrupting people’s lives with advertising, the brand blended naturally into a moment when its product felt genuinely relevant. The result was an experience that combined humor and familiarity while generating both conversation and increased sales.
It is a compelling example of how thoughtful experience design can directly enhance brand value.

Vaseline「Verified by Vaseline」
SASSY and Trust in the AI Era  

As Vaseline-related hacks spread across social media, the brand scientifically tested their validity and awarded an official verification mark only to reliable methods.
This allowed users to share information with confidence, without being misled by misinformation. The campaign combined scientific credibility (Science), visual appeal (Aesthetics), and social shareability (Shared), making it a distinctly SASSY approach.
In an age of information overload, particularly as AI accelerates the circulation of content, the campaign demonstrated the importance of brands acting as trusted filters.

Lucky Yatra
Innovation × Emotion  

To address fare evasion on Indian railways, an issue that generates annual losses of approximately JPY 110 billion, Lucky Yatra adopted an unexpected approach.
Instead of introducing stricter penalties, the initiative encouraged behavioral change through rewards. Train ticket numbers were turned into lottery entries, with winners announced every day. By transforming rule-following into a source of anticipation and enjoyment, the campaign aligned with a cultural affinity for luck while making use of an existing system. The result was an exceptional return on investment of 490 times the original cost.
Lucky Yatra is a powerful example of social innovation that combines systemic reform with emotional value.

How LENS Will Put These Insights into Practice : Three Commitments 

1.We Will Design Brand Behavior, Not Just Advertising
Rather than creating one-off commercials or campaigns, we will design actions that communicate a company’s values and its perspective on the future.

2.We Will Embed Co-Creation in Both the Process and the Outcome
As the SASSY framework illustrates, brand value is shaped, tested, and amplified together with users.
LENS will go beyond simply developing ideas. As an active partner in shaping culture, we will design ecosystems of co-creation that connect brands with society.

3. We Will Bring Japan-Born Social Creativity to the Global Stage 
We will not simply learn from international case studies. We will develop ideas rooted in Japan’s distinctive social challenges and cultural context, bringing them into global competition. 

Creating Valuable Experiences Together with Society 

The lessons we gained in Cannes are not simply about winning awards. They offer clues for redesigning the future of brands in ways that resonate with the world. 
As a co-creative collective, LENS will continue to support our clients’ ambitions and cast new light on the relationship between brands and society.  

LENS
Toru Yoshimura / Masami Nakata 


Source
The Work – the official Cannes Lions archive
https://www.lovethework.com/
The three campaign boards featured in this article have been reproduced from The Work with permission from Cannes Lions.