At Cannes 2026, Effectiveness Sets The New Bar For Great Creative

When 12 tonnes of KitKat bars were stolen just before Easter in Italy, the brand faced a choice: just manage the crisis or turn it into a moment. KitKat chose the latter. The "Stolen KitKat Tracker" let consumers scan barcodes to check if their bar was part of the stolen shipment, turning passive buyers into amateur detectives. The work generated 2.2 million engagements, $224 million in earned media, and this week won the PR Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2026.

It's also a perfect example of how the industry is thinking about creative that wins.

Cannes Lions has spent decades as a celebration of agency creative, and the 2026 festival shows how much that picture has widened. Traditional agencies now share the Croisette with tech platforms and digital partners, creators, and brands designing experiences of their own. The expanding guest list mirrors how marketing operates today, having moved from mass-media control into algorithmic visibility, creator influence, and real-world brand experiences. The same forces are raising the bar on what brands have to prove, turning effectiveness into the measure that counts.

Silvia Lenberger, Head of Global Brand Experience at Nestlé Nutrition & Health, approaches the market from a practical vantage point at the company's Swiss headquarters. Her two decades of cross-category experience span both the agency and client sides, and she now manages global brand experiences against the everyday pressure of private labels and agile disruptors. Recently selected to the PR Shortlisting Jury at Cannes Lions 2026, Lenberger evaluates work by looking past the industry's default reliance on reach as a proxy for success.

"The question 'and then what happened?' should be a key conversation in every judging room. Cannes is already moving in that direction, but creativity matters more when it is actually grounded in impact," says Lenberger. Culturally resonant work is no longer enough if it doesn't actually move people to act, and juries are adjusting accordingly. The festival has responded with new categories built around long-term accountability, including Creative Brand Lions and Creative Effectiveness Lions.

The test for real impact

For Lenberger, effectiveness is the standard creative has to clear, and she applies a deliberately plain test: "Is it a real solution for a real problem that actually changed consumer behavior?" The bar is high on purpose, because reach and impressions can no longer stand in for results. "Asking what changed and who did something differently eliminates a lot of very beautiful, well-crafted, culturally resonant work that is ultimately consequenceless. Coverage without behavior change is just advertising with cheaper distribution."

KitKat's Stolen Tracker demonstrates the principle. A stolen shipment wasn't a PR problem to contain; it was a real consumer moment to activate. The tracker converted attention into action: 2.2 million people participated by checking batch codes to see if their bars were part of the theft. Consumers engaged because they had a genuine reason to. The organic participation, the earned media value, the fact that it moved people to act, that's what makes it effective.

Familiar principles, new moment

For all the new tools and growing weight of algorithms, the anchor Lenberger keeps returning to is consumer understanding. "The fundamental rules of marketing are still the same. You still need to understand your consumers and you need to have a product that has the right innovation," she says. "It's just the way you navigate the landscape is completely upside down."

That principle of understanding the consumer, matching the method, measuring what actually changed isn't new. What's new is that it's winning. Cannes proved it this week.