This week, Cannes Lions unveiled its Creative Data winners this week, with the Grand Prix going to ‘SOS POS’ for BCP (Banco de Crédito del Perú), created by Circus Grey in Lima.
The category, which has recognized data-driven creativity since its introduction in 2015, saw jury president Anupriya Acharya identify several themes across this year’s winning work.
“The Grand Prix winner stood apart for the beautiful simplicity of its idea and the imaginative use of data – data used to protect data! It turned an everyday payment terminal into a lifeline at a moment of real vulnerability,” said Acharya.
“It solved a human problem, strengthened trust in a difficult-to-differentiate banking category, and showed how Creative Data can drive business impact while scaling meaningful protection for people and society.”
Three trends from the Creative Data category
According to Acharya, three clear trends emerge from winners for Creative Data.
One stream of winners showed brands using large and complex data sets with real ambition – not to show off complexity, but to solve meaningful problems.
Suncorp Australia’s Haven turned climate, property and peril data into personalised resilience plans for homes. Fantasy Herd by McCann NZ turned live farm data into entertainment, bringing positivity to dairy and brand. The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix used mapping and real race data to turn a local children’s tradition into an interactive global experience.
600K Network’s “Comando Con Venezuela” turned citizens into data infrastructure, transforming QR codes and smartphones into a real-time, verifiable election dataset under extraordinary risk.
Simple data, elevated by human ingenuity
Acharya notes that another strong pattern was work where the data was not necessarily the most complex, but the creative leap was exceptional. SOS POS used complaint and location data to turn payment terminals into emergency protection points. Skoda’s DuoBell used acoustic data to solve a real safety gap.
These ideas proved that great Creative Data is not about how much data you have, but what you do with it.
Unseen data, becoming systems of change
A third pattern, she says, was work that used data to make invisible realities visible – and then build systems around them. Here to Stay for Mastercard transformed migrant underemployment into career pathways and economic opportunity.
Forests Without Names for Hyundai turned fragmented kelp data into a shared environmental mapping standard. Dying Reviews (Hospice NZ) made the needs of people at the end of life visible to organisations.
The best work did not just reveal problems; it created ways to act on them, said Acharya.
