Cannes Winners – Inspiration or Education?
Is there a difference between Inspiration and Education in your mind?
You may believe that Inspiration sends you northward on a new path and that Education provides you with the knowledge to navigate that journey. Sometimes, when you seek learning, you come away freshly inspired, as the educational breakthroughs also open up new excitement in your heart and soul.
Coming out of the 2025 Cannes Lions Festival, I can attest that the work shared from some 27,000 global award entries was Inspirational and Educational. The Festival does a fantastic job of showcasing the shortlisted and winning entries in the aspirationally named room “The Basement”. Yes, it is the Basement, and it is where veteran Cannes gurus advise first-timers to ensure they leverage to come out of the event with enough ideas to justify the cost of the trip to any finance department.
My trips to the basement included a solo trip to view the work and another with Strategy Magazine and Brainsights to monitor my neural data, a story I will leave to the professionals to share. What I do want to share with you are three cases that will inspire and inform you in different ways. The three I chose- Ads Cover Rents, The Kimberly Price, and Lessons of Shame- demonstrate interesting twists on some historical marketing fundamentals.
Ads Cover Rents
The expression “money can’t buy experiences” is overused in sponsorship marketing.
For Brahama beer, this mantra was flipped into “advertising can buy a short-term rental.” Knowing that the cost of vacation rentals soars during Brazilian Carnival and standing out from eighty brands during the world’s biggest party, the brand came up with a solution that solved both problems. They offered steep rent discounts to guests who would agree, via the listing landlord, to have a Braham advertising banner hung from their balcony, transforming them into urban ad spaces.
The results were priceless. Braham partnered with 2,350 apartments across five major cities, delivering a USD 1.8 million (≈ R$10 million) campaign, which achieved a 42% higher media impact than a typical ad campaign. This hyperlocal approach also resulted in Brahma being Carnival's #1 Top of Mind Brand.
The Kimberly Price
Surprise and delight is an activation approach that will never get old or wear out, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to implement.
The largest supermarket chain in Peru, Plaza Vea, is well known for supporting women athletes. For the 2024 Paris Olympics, they wanted to showcase Kimberly García, a two-time world champion in race walking. The challenge was that the sport receives very little attention, and her event would be broadcast at 2:00 AM in Peru, dooming her to little exposure. However, knowing that the bib numbers were not given out until shortly before the race, the supermarket offered online pricing that matched the number on her bib simultaneously. Her number was 146, and the chain launched sales of TVs, smartphones, refrigerators and other items at that price. (S/146 equals $36US).
Tapping into Peruvians' nocturnal nature, the activation resulted in 8,000 sales in two hours, sold-out products, and one million online reactions. Plus, it improved Plaza Vea's positioning as a supporter of women's sports by 60%, propelling Kimberly García into the Top 10 celebrities in Peru.
Lessons of Shame
Charities often face the true marketing challenge of translating their mission into tangible engagement with the public, donors, and lawmakers.
World Vision faced this challenge in Costa Rica, where education investment has been declining in recent years, drop-out rates have increased, and unsanitary schools have been closed in underserved communities. These were all things once thought improbable in a country that had abolished its army in 1948 in favour of investing in education to build a progressive society.
To bring critically needed attention to this issue, World Vision leveraged the fact that the gallery of Costa Rica’s National Congress is open to the public and set up a classroom for a day with students and educators from communities being challenged. This literally brought the issue to the decision makers' feet and amplified it with PR.
World Vision’s pivot from advocate to savvy ambush marketers, driven by a 3000% ROI in PR, resulted in a massive education budget increase of $73,583,176.39. In addition, Congress debated the issue for hours, 2026 presidential election candidates committed to educational reform, and the country reclaimed its identity. The action sparked over three hours of debate, generated 3000% ROI in PR, and led the 2026 presidential candidates to commit to education reform. The campaign successfully turned a neglected issue into a national priority and reclaimed education as a cornerstone of Costa Rican identity.