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The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is widely regarded as the benchmark for creative excellence in marketing and communications. Winning a Cannes Lion signals that a campaign has set a new standard for creativity, demonstrating the power of ideas to drive business results and shape culture.
At this year's festival, Unilever was named the most-awarded advertiser, with our brands earning 35 Lions and 87 shortlists. Here’s a look at some of the award-winning marketing campaigns, the thinking behind them and the impact they created.
Vaseline won 20 Lions across five campaigns, including Vaseline Originals and The Nipple Sponsorship.
Vaseline Originals is a first-of-its-kind product line inspired by viral hacks and the creators behind them. It flips the script on how beauty products are made, turning real community ideas into actual products. TikTok-driven launch sales of co-created products were 466% higher than the classic Vaseline jelly, with one jar sold every two seconds at launch.
For years, runners have applied Vaseline before long distance races, to prevent the painful side-effect of nipple chafing. In 2026, the brand became the Official Nipple Protector of the TCS London Marathon, with products available to runners before and during the event. New organic Vaseline hack posts have risen 24%, signalling a long-term shift as more users contribute ideas to the brand’s R&D.
Dove won six Lions for its r/eal Reviews campaign. In partnership with Reddit, Dove invited unfiltered reviews of its Intensive Repair 10-in-1 Serum Hair Mask, committing to publish the first 50, with permission, positive or negative. Sales surged by over 100% on the previous year. The product became the No.1 bestselling hair mask in the US during the campaign. And r/eal Reviews racked up more than a billion earned impressions.
Cif won four Lions for its Clean my Name campaign. In Brazil, being in debt is often described as having a ‘dirty name’, an issue affecting more than 80 million people. Partnering with Serasa, Brazil’s largest credit renegotiation platform, Cif gave people the chance to help pay off their debt. The impact? Millions in renegotiated debt and a lift in brand sales, demonstrating that growth comes from showing up in culture in ways that matter.
Dirt Is Good won three Lions for two campaigns.
Dirt is Good launched the OMO Varzenal Cup, bringing the energy of Brazilian várzea (grassroots) football to the Emirates Stadium. The Dirt Is Glory campaign is deepening OMO’s cultural relevance in Brazil, our second-biggest laundry market. It’s the brand’s most successful content with over 110 million views globally and 180,000 hours of watch time.
The brand partnered with Arsenal Women’s Football Club on ‘It Starts Outside’, a campaign built on never-before-seen childhood photos of the squad to spotlight how early outdoor play inspires confidence, independence and resilience. The campaign had a 7.3 million+ reach globally and delivered 86,000+ engagements.
Knorr won a Silver Lion for its #ServingSingles campaign. The brand identified a shift away from app-led dating towards personal introductions and found that, for 93% of Gen Z, cooking is the ultimate ‘green flag’ on a dating profile. The campaign invited people to introduce their single friends through cooking. It achieved 3.5 billion earned impressions and 3.3 million engagements across 29 markets, demonstrating how cultural relevance strengthens brand desire.
Hellmann’s won a Bronze Lion for its #MainFlavourEnergy campaign. For decades, mayo has been the unsung hero of the kitchen – binding ingredients, adding moisture and enhancing flavour – but rarely does it take centre stage. So the brand flipped the script, proving that mayo can be the star of the dish. Who better to front such a campaign than the world’s most famous background actor, Jesse Heiman.
“These recognitions are a reminder that the future of marketing is participation,” says Leandro Barreto, Unilever’s Chief Marketing Officer. “When brands start from real behaviour, earn their place in culture and create the conditions for people to participate, creativity becomes more than communication. It becomes relevance, momentum, growth.”
A Cannes Lions winning campaign demonstrates measurable business impact, cultural relevance and creative innovation that sets new industry standards. Unilever's 2026 award-winning marketing campaigns exemplify this formula: Vaseline Originals achieved 466% higher sales by turning viral TikTok hacks into actual products, while Dove's r/eal Reviews generated over 1 billion earned impressions by embracing unfiltered consumer feedback. These successful brand campaigns prove that creative excellence emerges when brands participate authentically in culture rather than just advertising to it.
Unilever won 35 Lions across its brand portfolio at Cannes Lions 2026, making it the festival's most-awarded advertiser. Vaseline led with 20 Lions across five campaigns, Dove secured six Lions for its innovative r/eal Reviews campaign, and Cif won four Lions for addressing debt stigma in Brazil. The international advertising awards recognised campaigns from Knorr, Hellmann's and Dirt Is Good as well, with Unilever's brands collectively earning 87 shortlists – demonstrating sustained creative marketing innovation across categories and markets.
Brands can win Cannes Lions awards by demonstrating creativity that drives measurable business impact and cultural resonance, not just aesthetic appeal. Analysis of Unilever award winning campaigns reveals three success factors: authentic participation in existing consumer behaviours (like Vaseline's TikTok hack co-creation), transparency and vulnerability (Dove's commitment to publishing unfiltered reviews), and addressing culturally specific pain points (Cif's Brazilian debt campaign). The advertising festival increasingly rewards campaigns that create conditions for consumer participation rather than one-way brand messaging, with results proving that cultural relevance strengthens both brand desire and commercial performance.
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