How Creative Can Win the Lion’s Share

Next month, Cannes Lions returns to the south of France bringing together the work, people and ideas shaping the future of marketing. It’s a moment not just to celebrate creativity, but to evaluate what actually drives results. 

Winning a Lion remains a significant achievement. The strongest campaigns often push beyond category norms, introduce new ways of thinking and creating work that resonates emotionally with audiences. 

But the impact goes beyond awards. The most effective creative delivers against commercial objectives driving both short-term sales and long-term brand growth. Increasingly, the industry is recognizing that creativity and effectiveness are not separate priorities but fundamentally linked. 

Since the introduction of the Creative Effectiveness Lions in 2011, Cannes has placed greater emphasis on this connection. Over time, the criteria have evolved to reflect the importance of sustained impact, with eligibility now extending to work that has delivered results over multiple years. The alignment with frameworks such as the WARC and LIONS Creative Effectiveness Ladder has further strengthened the focus on measurable business outcomes. 

CPG Standouts: Could They Be Champions?

In the CPG category, a number of campaigns released over the past year are already demonstrating strong potential. Using System1’s Test Your Ad and Competitive Edge platform Test Your Ad Competitive Edge platform, one of the largest datasets of emotional response in advertising, we can begin to identify which campaigns are resonating most with audiences. 

Only a small proportion of ads generate a strong emotional response, but those that do consistently outperform on both short-term sales and long-term growth. 

Super Bowl creative is known for being bold, pushing boundaries and winning Lions (remember CeraVe’s Michael Cera conspiracy theory campaign?!).  This year, Pepsi didn’t hold back on one of advertising’s biggest stages.  They leaned in, so much that the brand borrowed it’s competitro’s fluent device, Coca Cola’s polar bear.  It was a new twist on the Pepsi Challenge, this time wrapped into an entertaining story showing the polar bar having an identity crisis when he realizes he prefers Pepsi.   

The ad scored 4.2 stars in System1’s testing System1’s testing, putting it in the top 10 Super Bowl ads of 2026.  It also scored exceptionally on Spike, the short-term sales potential and 88% of viewers recognized the creative as Pepsi’s.  Not only are these incredibly strong effectiveness metrics, the campaign was one of the most highly discussed following the game.  Not every brand has the bravery to borrow distinctive assets.  It paid off for Pepsi because it also made it’s own brand visible throughout the ad, including multiple cues to ensure viewers knew it wasn’t a Coke ad.  Now that’s a Lions-worthy approach. 

Pepsi’s Super Bowl campaign took a confident approach, leaning into familiar category cues while reframing them in a way that felt distinctive. By referencing a well-known competitor asset: the polar bear, the brand created an unexpected narrative that remained clearly ownable. 

The campaign performed strongly across System1’s metrics, achieving 4.2 Stars System1’s testing and ranking among the top-performing Super Bowl ads of the year. It also delivered strong short-term sales potential and high levels of brand recognition. 

What stands out is the balance: the creative is bold enough to capture attention, while maintaining clarity around the brand. This combination is often what separates effective work from work that is simply noticeable. 

Axe via Lola MullenLowe in germany continue to demonstrate how humor can be used to create distinctive and memorable creative. In this campaign, an edgy shower interaction reinforces the brand’s positioning in a humorous and engaging way. 

The ad titled “The Neighbour” centers on an unlucky man who’s taking a shower with his Axe shower gel, happily singing away when the water is suddenly shut off by an unseen person and all you see is their hand.  Still covered in suds to maintain some modesty, he goes next door to ask a neighbor if he can use their shower.  An elderly woman kindly invites him in, though observant viewers may notice she’s wearing a cardigan that matches the sleeve of the mysterious hand that shut off his water. Watch to see what happens next inspired by their tagline the power of a fragrance. 

The ad scored 4.0 Stars on Test Your Ad and performed strongly on short-term sales indicators. While a small proportion of viewers registered negative reactions, these were outweighed by positive emotional responses mainly surprise and amusement. Importantly, the product remains central to the narrative. This ensures that the emotional response translates into brand attribution, an area where many campaigns underperform. 

You may not consider fiber to be the most exciting ingredient to promote, but Smarfood’s Fiber Pop popcorn shows it can be entertaining. The brand partnered with GUT to create the charming and cheeky FiBEAR, a brand mascot who needs to find an easier-to-digest snack than honey. Fiber Pop isn’t shy about leaning into potty humor to showcase the benefits of eating more fiber. They’re not the only one to take this approach either. Kellogg’s Raisin Bran hired William Shatner to communicate that people ‘will shat’ every day by consuming the cereal.   

While the Star Trek star brought the laughs, pricey celebrity endorsements require continued investment to maintain a consistent look and feel. Where Fiber Pop excels is ideating and launching their own fluent device that they can leverage for years. Our book with Effie, The Creative Dividend, showed how consistency in general and fluent devices in particular are profit multipliers for campaigns.  

Test Your Ad’s metrics demonstrate that FiBEAR is being well received by audiences. The ad scores well above the norm for savory snacks on both Star (long-term brand-building potential) with 3.9 Stars and Emotional Intensity – FiBEAR’s presence and the humorous approach make the ad resonate better than a functional, message-driven ad. Here’s hoping we see more from FiBEAR in the future!   

Philadelphia’s introduction of the “Phillyboy” character reflects a strategic shift towards building distinctive brand assets with the debut of its Phillyboy cowboy, who ‘spreads creamy goodness’ around the world. Rather than ride a horse, he prefers a Holstein cow. 

It’s a playful choice by the brand; a character with a clear point of view and strong tie-in to the product. Additionally, it’s also a strategic move by Philadelphia and agency Johannes Leonardo. Phillyboy is dedicated to showing people the various ways they can use cream cheese while cooking. Not just on a bagel, but added into pasta, chili and eggs. By helping audiences rethink the use cases for cream cheese, they define new category entry points.  

The ad scored 3.7 Stars in System1’s testing, well above the 2.8-Star average for spreads and condiments, and exceptional on short-term Spike, which predicts short-term sales gains. By creating a consistent character and narrative, the brand establishes a platform that can support both immediate engagement and long-term brand building. 

No Cowardly Lions Here

In the world of marketing, bravery can be the difference between a campaign that’s dull and one that captures attention, entertains, helps consumers remember you and only you, and, of course, drives real commercial impact.  

Across categories, one pattern remains consistent: work that performs strongly tends to evoke a clear emotional response. Many campaigns fall into a neutral middle ground competent, but unlikely to be remembered or drive action. 

Most ads don’t fail because they’re bad—they fail because they’re forgettable. 

As Greg Hahn noted, “The riskiest thing you can do is be ignorable.” 

And yet, the majority of advertising fails to elicit a meaningful emotional response in consumers. Most ads are stuck in the gray area of neutrality. If people don’t feel anything, they won’t do anything. 

Data from System1 and the IPA, along with insights from Jon Evans, eatbigfish’s Adam Morgan and Peter Field revealed The Extraordinary Cost of Dull at Cannes in 2024. Earlier this year, System1, Jon Evans and eatbigfish further explored dull creative, outlining the prescription in The Cure for Dull.  

For brands aiming to defeat dull, it’s important to note that creative bravery doesn’t mean that your boldest ideas go to market without the proper consumer insight, feedback and due diligence.  

The bravest marketers are those who build their campaigns from consumer truths and push these insights to the next level. Then, they arm themselves with the evidence that their creative will lead to business results.  

Cannes Lions understands the important role that data plays in strategy and measurement. This year, the Creative Data Lion is being updated, with entries now required to show how data was at the center of both the core creative idea and its measurable commercial impact. Data is central to both creative strategy and assessing results.  

So, how does it work from a strategy perspective? Ad pre-testing that measures consumers’ emotional responses helps marketers get to the root of how people feel about creative, guiding future iterations to get to the best end result. And, crucially, it reveals how this feeling translates into short-term sales potential and long-term brand-building potential.  

Look for a platform that highlights category norms, showcases second-by-second verbatims and reasons for emotion across the duration of your ad, identifies the distinctive brand assets working the hardest within your creative, and breaks down metrics across key demographics like age and gender. With these insights in hand, you’ll have the confidence to launch bold work that has the greatest potential to help you stand out in your category and grow your brand.  

Create with Confidence® 

System1 is attending, presenting at and networking at Cannes. Learn more about where you can find us at the Festival and exciting new research we’re launching here. Plus, stay tuned for our testing of the Cannes winners, powered by our Test Your Ad platform.  

Want to get started with ad testing today? Test Your Ad leverages real emotional response to predict and improve the commercial impact of creative. Benchmark your advertising against competitors. Get the metrics and insights you need to sell in creative to leadership teams. Enhance your media buying decisions to eliminate risk and wasted spend on dull creative that won’t drive business results.