Last July, I wrote about Coca Cola’s “goodvertising” efforts. Goodvertising refers to when brands do good stuff that have an impact on people through their creative ideas/campaigns. This category of inspirational life-changing work is the kind that most people in the business aspire to do at some point in their professional life – not to mention, the reason a lot of young folk pursue a career in advertising. It was definitely a reason I joined the industry of communication: I want to be part of an initiative that improves a person’s life at the most basic level with an innovative idea that is human to the core.

Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity is an annual festival that acknowledges and awards great creative work. It’s a big deal to win at Cannes because your work is up against the best content produced all over the world. Winning a Cannes Lion is like getting a black belt in advertising. In the past few years, Cannes winners tend to be campaigns or ideas that had 3 things:

a) an unanswered problem
b) useful technology that answered this problem
c) integrated approach based on one human insight

More and more winning campaigns are becoming product-based. Not as in the product that is being sold but as in the advertisers are designing products or solutions to world problems. Technology is a device or facilitator but not the most important factor. The idea is still king. It is increasingly difficult to bring an idea to life that is not condescending yet relevant to the brand’s purpose. It is even more challenging to keep your idea simple: no extra fluff, just an easy low-effort solution. The following were winning campaigns at Cannes 2014 that were just SOME of this year’s best examples of GOODVERTISING:

HONORABLE MENTION: