Kantar, the world’s leading marketing data and analytics company, today reveals the winners of its 2024 Creative Effectiveness Awards, celebrating the best TV, Digital/Social, Print/Outdoor and AI-tested ads from around the world. Kantar’s awards are the only awards built on the opinions of real consumers around the globe, with 1.97m consumers participating in Kantar ad testing globally in 2023. The award winners showcase the ads that consumers found the most impactful among the thousands that Kantar tested in 2023. The results provide insights into what drives ad effectiveness and the creative techniques used by the world’s best advertisers to forge connections with consumers.
To celebrate the fifth year of the awards, Kantar has expanded its Digital/Social and TV categories to include 15 winners each, and, for the first time, are awarding creative quality evaluated by its AI-based ad testing. LINK AI is a powerful, AI-based solution for testing digital and TV advertising, trained with consumer insight, and backed by Kantar’s LINK+ database of over 260,000 ads.
Revealed! The most creative and effective ads of 2023
The best creative across Digital/Social, TV and Print/Outdoor comes from a diverse range of brands, categories and markets – highlighting the universal power of harnessing creativity to build meaningful connections with consumers:
Top Digital/Social ads
| Brand | Country | Spot | Agency | |
| 1 | Kahlúa | USA | 15s Gasp feat. Salma Hayek | Wieden+Kennedy |
| 2 | LEGO | China | LEGO Trademark Campaign China | The LEGO Agency |
| 3 | Timberland | UK | This is Not a Boot – Video UK | INDUSTRY |
Top 3 TV ads
| Brand | Country | Spot | Agency | |
| 1 | Heineken® | South Africa | 150 Whateverken – TVC | LePub |
| 2 | Cadbury | UK & Ireland | Yours For 200 Years/Yours Always | VCCP |
| 3 | Samsung | Brazil | Neo QLED 2023_More wow than ever_BR | BBH |
Top 3 print and outdoor ads
| Brand | Country | Spot | Agency | |
| 1 | HSBC | UK | Cost of Living | VML |
| 2 | Heineken® | UK | H150 Whateverken - DOHH | LePub |
| 3 | Adidas | China | adidas SS23 Climacool KV (GCA Local) |
HYPEMAKER China |
Top 3 LINK AI tested ads
| Brand | Country | Spot | Agency | |
| 1 | Dettol | UK | Your Laundry Has Something to Tell You | Reckitt’s In-House Agency – Energy Studios |
| 2 | Nissan | USA | Nissan ARIYA “Dualities” TM FF 2 | NissanUnited (TBWA\Chiat\Day) |
| 3 | Aashirvaad | India | Hua Kya | (in house production) |
Winning ads reveal five ways to create consumer connections
Kantar’s Creative Effectiveness Awards 2024 winners illustrate the ways that brands can forge a close connection with their audience. In the report, Kantar’s creative experts present five key themes that encapsulate the differing ways the winning ads have successfully achieved this:
1. Courage: Showing creative bravery to connect with customers.
A great example of this in action is Nana/Libresse/Bodyform’s ‘Periodsomnia’ ad, the #9 TV winner, which portrays the experience of bad sleep when on your period, without any sugarcoating.
2. Catastrophising: Grabbing attention and connecting emotionally through drama.
The #1 Digital/Social winner, a Facebook ad for the Mexican coffee liqueur brand Kahlúa, is a great example of this trend, immersing viewers in telenovela-inspired melodrama.
3. Candid: Down to earth advertising that connects with real life.
Rådet for Sikker Trafik’s (The Danish Road Safety Council) public information ad ‘Dit svar er bedre sent end aldrig (Your reply is better late than never)’ is a great example of the trend for ads which reject perfection to connect with viewers.
4. Consistent: Know when you have a good thing - connecting over time.
Heineken developed award-winning creatives across all three media categories for its superb ‘H150 Whateverken’ campaign, showcasing the power of a good idea, consistently applied.
5. Comical: Make them laugh and connect through humour.
#12 in the Digital/Social category is an ad for TENA Men which uses humour to address the sensitive issue of male incontinence and convey a serious message in an informative yet humorous way.
Commenting on the award winners, Jane Ostler, EVP, Global Thought Leadership, Kantar, said: “Advertising has the power to drive brand growth if it’s creative and effective. One of the top priorities for CMOs is to predispose more people to their brand. When people are predisposed, they are clear on what a brand means to them and how it stands out from the others. Our award-winning ads are a real showcase of creativity harnessed in support of commercial goals, and demonstrate what it looks like when marketers take digital advertising seriously and optimise their creative at scale.”
To see the full list of award winners in each category, visit www.kantar.com and register for the webinar “Kantar Creative Effectiveness Awards 2024 | Creative consumer connections” taking place at 9am and 4pm BST on Thursday 25 April, and on demand afterwards.