Please note: PRWeek will focus on the idea creation credit for its coverage of the Cannes Lions shortlists and winners.In the sweltering south of France, comms executives — often with rosé in hand — awaited with bated breath last week as the 2026 Cannes Lions awards were announced.The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity honors innovation and excellence in the advertising, marketing and communications industries. This year’s festival featured celebrity appearances — Oprah Winfrey and Stella McCartney spoke about driving positive change and evolution in creative industries, respectively — and waterfront activations from brands such as Reddit and Spotify.Despite the flashy nature of the event, at its core, the Cannes Lions festival honors brands’ creativity in a competitive attention economy. From KitKat’s PR Grand Prix-winning KitKat Heist to Hellmann’s Mayonnaise’s unexpected #MainFlavorEnergy series, this year’s work drove massive engagement through authentic creativity. But which campaign showcased the ultimate PR genius? The KitKat Heist — KitKatThe 2025 PR Lions Grand Prix went to KitKat’s The KitKat Heist campaign, created by Burson London and VML London. Just days before Easter — a key sales moment for chocolate — 12 tons of KitKat chocolate bars were stolen in a truck heist while in transit between Italy and Poland.The chocolate brand turned the confectionery tragedy into consumer engagement by launching a Stolen KitKat Tracker, urging consumers to enter the bars’ eight-digit batch number to determine if it was stolen or not.The campaign reached over 808 million people and earned $224 million in earned media in 10 days, according to the campaign’s submissions for the festival.#MainFlavorEnergy — Hellmann's MayonnaiseIn a world that exalts celebrity, Hellmann’s, with the support of agency partner Edelman, made an unexpected move that paid off when it cast background actor Jesse Heiman as the star of its latest campaign.Heiman, who has been credited in over 100 on-screen appearances, including The Big Bang Theory and Spider Man, was featured in the background of food creator videos discussing Hellman’s new flavored mayonnaise. Heiman’s appearances spiked audience interest, generating earned media attention online. The campaign drove an over 13% sales lift across flavored mayo and 5.28 times more web traffic than average, according to the campaign’s submissions for the festival. The work was awarded a Bronze Lion in the PR category.The Relationship Aid — SpecsaversIn a campaign supported by Golin Ketchum London, Specsavers poked fun at a major point of contention in aging couples’ love lives: not being able to hear each other.The brand posted a sultry teaser video for a new product, generating 1.5 million views before revealing that its intimacy-reviving device was in fact a hearing aid.The campaign reportedly increased hearing aid sales by 69% and reduced stigma around hearing loss by 41%. It took home Gold Lion and Silver Lions in the PR category.The Swedish Prescription — Visit SwedenFeeling under the weather? Visit Sweden has a cure. The tourism group’s campaign, supported by Prime Weber Shandwick Stockholm, positioned Sweden, a hot spot for saunas and timeless museums, as the first country to be prescribed by doctors to increase wellness.Prime Weber Shandwick Stockholm was awarded a Silver Lion in the PR category and a Bronze Lion for Health & Wellness for its work on the The Swedish Prescription campaign.The Unburied Casket — Women for ChangeSouth Africa has one of the highest femicide rates in the world, with a 33.8% year-on-year increase. Yet, despite promises, the South African government has failed to address the growing violence and inequity.Women for Change, a non-profit with the goal of ending femicide, partnered with Edelman’s Johannesburg office to create The Unburied Casket. The campaign aimed to signal to the South African government that its negligence must come to an end.Rather than a traditional protest, Edelman and Women for Change created a casket 33.8% larger than average to represent the year-on-year increase of femicide as part of a funeral procession. The casket was covered in Zulu beadwork made by local artisans.The campaign generated 1.1 million petition signatures from 13,000 cities, more than 2 billion earned impressions and 2,400 earned articles across over 435 media outlets, according to the campaign’s submissions for the festival. The work won a Bronze Lion in the PR Lions and a Silver Lion in the Glass: The Lion for Change category.The Undropped Kit — AsicsTwo out of three girls will drop out of a sport before they turn 16, according to Asics. To counteract this inequity, the brand, supported by Golin Ketchum London and GUT Toronto, created a physical education kit — The Undropped Kit. The kit featured 48 different clothing combinations to make young women feel more comfortable in PE classes at school. The brand and agencies worked directly with women in secondary schools in the UK to create the variety of options.The campaign was awarded a Silver Lion award in the Health & Wellness Lions and a Bronze Lion in the Design Lions. Which award-winning campaign flexed the most creative PR genius this year? Take PRWeek’s poll on LinkedIn.This story first appeared on PRWeek U.S.