A look back at 2022’s Cannes Lions winners: how brands can prove their promises

When James Baldwin said, “I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do,” he wasn’t talking about brands, but he very well could have been. Consumers agree with this sentiment. Last year’s Meaningful Brands study of 395,000 global consumers revealed that 71% of consumers are tired of brands’ “empty promises”.

In this environment proving a brand’s promise has become more challenging. But inspiration exists. Just in time for awards season, we culled through 2022’s Cannes Lions winners and shortlisted campaigns. Here are five brands that are proving their promises through the experiences they create.

Corona

You can’t find a beach you’ll enjoy if it’s filled with trash, so Corona sponsored the first-ever Plastic Fishing Tournament that kicked off in Sinaloa, Mexico and has been replicated around the world. The premise was simple – instead of paying fishermen to catch fish, pay them to compete in a tournament that rewards the team that retrieves the most plastic from the ocean. The first teams removed three tons of plastic from the water. Most importantly, Corona is connecting fishing communities with recycling companies so they can earn a second income selling plastic all year round.

Decathlon

Its brand purpose is to make sport accessible to all, no matter where they are. They demonstrated this promise in an unexpected way - bringing the value of sport to a group for whom it is least accessible – prisoners.

In The Breakway, the brand launched an e-cycling team of prisoners in Belgium – a hotbed of competitive cycling – and provided them the equipment to ride and race anonymously on the virtual cycling platform Zwift.

Through a podcast and Facebook Live stream, Decathlon highlighted a race involving prisoners and law enforcement professionals, demonstrating the power of sport to free people’s spirits and unite them. The program is an ongoing pilot they plan to replicate throughout the world.

Heineken

This brand continually provides experiential proof of its brand promise. Two recent promise-based campaigns did this – one proved their commitment to the EverGreen Initiative, their ecologically conscious business strategy (Brew a Better World) and the other supported local bars and restaurants. The Unwasted Beer campaign promised to support the environment and local bars and restaurants.

With Covid shutdowns threatening to cause millions of gallons of beer to spoil, Heineken stepped in and, instead of letting the beer go to waste, it bought back 28m pints, and through partnerships converted it into power for 61,687 homes and 4,600 tons of fertilizer and animal feed. The program lives on in locations around the world.

Heineken’s Shutter Ads campaign also provided proof that it supports local communities. Recognizing that shutters on the outside of pubs closed for the pandemic were perfect for its out-of-home ads, Heineken allocated its entire billboard budget (10% of its marketing budget) to create ads on shuttered bars and restaurants. And they paid the owners directly for the privilege.

Adidas

Striving to be the best sports brand in the world, Adidas strives to create a world of possibility where sports and culture are at the center.

This means pushing people forward with action to live its promise of “impossible is nothing.” So, when it knew that 32% of women around the world feel uncomfortable swimming in public, and in the Middle East, it’s 88%, they created the world’s first swimmable billboard in Dubai to encourage women to dive in and become ambassadors for its new inclusive swimwear collection, regardless of their shape, ethnicity or ability. It sparked a global conversation across 60 countries about making swimming more inclusive as a sport for women.

Vice Media

The British Museum Unfiltered Tour was Vice Media’s experiential act that delivered real proof of its brand promise. Vice vows to tell more authentic and interesting under-reported stories to young audiences in an ‘immersionist’ way, so the secret AR tour revealing the story behind the British Museum’s 990,000 square feet of stolen artifacts, was the perfect way of paying that off. The immersive, guerilla nature of the experience proved that its promise is not empty words but a commitment the brand intends to prove over again.

Each activation is simple and singular in its focus to pay off a specific promise. They are easy to understand, insightful, newsworthy and the exclamation point on an ongoing commitment each brand has made to prove the things they’ve promised.