CANNES, FRANCE: 23 JUNE: Kantar, the world’s leading marketing data and analytics business, has announced the winners of its 2026 Blueprint for Brand Growth Awards, recognising 13 brands at a ceremony held in partnership with Microsoft during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on Tuesday night.
The awards go to brands putting Kantar's Blueprint for Brand Growth into action. Every win is grounded in quantitative evidence on how marketers can build strong, profitable brands, based on Kantar’s analysis of 6.5 billion human data points and backed by its externally validated Meaningful, Different and Salient framework.
The awards land at a moment when the need for brand building has rarely been greater. AI has quickly become a major influence on how people discover and choose brands – more than four in five adults have used an AI assistant in the past six months. Brand fundamentals still matter, but they need to now work for both the human mind and the machine mind.
Paul Zwillenberg, CEO, Kantar, said: “AI has changed how brands create, and it’s established a new dynamic between people, brands and machines. But the power of brand endures. If anything, it matters more, because when every person has access to the same technology, you have to work harder to build meaning and difference to stand out.
“Every brand we recognised tonight has done something specific: they have acted on real human signals to inform their marketing decisions and growth their brand. This year’s winners demonstrate what the reality of effective brand building looks like in a rapidly changing context, setting a new benchmark for brand growth in the age of AI.”
OpenAI’s ChatGPT was named Most Meaningfully Different Brand, having risen through the BrandZ Most Valuable Brands ranking faster than almost any brand in the previous 20 years, launching its first brand campaign and establishing itself as an ad platform within six months.
The full list of 2026’s winners & award criteria:
| Category | Winner | Criteria |
| Most Effective Creative Content | Heinz | Top-performing creative in the LINK creative effectiveness testing database |
| Most Effective Creator-Led Content (presented in association with Microsoft) | CeraVe (L'Oréal) | Top creator-led content in the LINK creative effectiveness testing database |
| Most Progressive Ad | Prada Paradigme (L'Oréal) | Most progressive ad in the LINK creative effectiveness testing database |
| Most Effective Campaign | Electronic Arts for Apex Legends | Top performing campaign among in the LIFT brand lift database |
| Consumer Ad Platform of the Year | Amazon | Consumers' preferred ad platform for the third year running |
| Most Innovative Ad Platform | TikTok | Voted most innovative platform by marketers |
| Meaningfully Different Innovation, Non-FMCG | McDonald's | New growth from crafted beverages and new occasions |
| Meaningfully Different Innovation, FMCG | Cadbury Australia | Created new dessert and gifting occasions in a leading brand |
| Sustainable Brand of the Year | Ecover | Brand that most consistently turns sustainability into brand strength |
| Meaningfully Different Experience of the Year | Octopus Energy | Leading brand for advocacy and distinctiveness |
| Meaningfully Different Breakthrough Brand | Tecate | One of the biggest year-on-year rises in Meaningful Difference |
| Disruptor Brand of the Year | Lidl | Achieved top disruptor score, measurably moves rivals' price |
| Most Meaningfully Different Brand | ChatGPT | Highest Meaningful Difference score on record |
For details of Kantar’s Cannes programme of events visit Kantar.com.