Cannes Lions 2025 Analysis Shows Industry Is Becoming Social-First

A new study by SAMY highlights the shift towards social in the marketing industry. Nine out 10 Cannes Lions 2025 winners used social media. What’s more, the winning campaigns were more social-first than ever: whether we look at the use of influencers, UGC or real-time marketing, the numbers are growing significantly.

The report by Kurio, a SAMY agency, and Cannes Lions has been published annually since 2012. Timeline analysis shows how the role of social media in the winning work has steadily increased: 20% in 2012,44% in 2014, 66% in 2016, 83% in 2018 and now hitting 89% in 2025.

“The role of social media in the marketing complex is unquestionable”, comments the report’s analyst-in-chief, and an executive creative director at SAMY, Jari Lähdevuori. “Looking at the best campaigns in the world, it’s getting really hard to find work that doesn’t embrace social media. But what’s most interesting in this year’s winning work, is how big of a leap has happened in the way social is used. Brands are starting to understand the true nature of social – the authenticity, the dialogue, the pace. All the things that make deliver the best impact for campaigns on social.”

38% of the social media winners had influencers or creators at the core of the idea – a 2X growth compared to last year, hitting an all time high. Also, the winning campaigns are switching their influencers form mega to micro. Of all the influencer-first campaigns, only 38% used celebrity influencers, drastically down from last year’s 74%.

Other key aspects of social-first also hit record numbers in Cannes Lions 2025 winners. More than half (57%) of Cannes Lions social media winners tapped into real-time marketing. Looking at solely the Social & Creator Lions category, it was higher still: 73%. User Generated Content too is ever more present in Cannes Lions social media winners. This year more than a third (37%) embraced it. UGC usage has been growing steadily over the past years: 11% (2022), 19% (2023), and 26% (2024).

“All of this shows that the industry is truly grasping social-first. Finally”, comments Jari Lähdevuori. “This has been long time coming. First there was interest, then became the investments and finally it seems also the insights and ideas are born-social.”

Cannes Lions is the most important awards show in the marketing and advertising industry and a leading festival on creativity. The World-Class Lessons On Social Media Marketing report was released for the 13th time. Its sample consists of winners in seven categories, which collectively express a wide spectrum of marketing: Brand Experience & Activation, Design, Direct, Media, PR, Social & Creator, and Titanium. A total of 321 winners were analysed this year, representing almost half of all the winning campaigns.

Kurio is a social-first creative agency, which has been recognised as the #3 most creative agency in the world (Holmes Report 2024), and won awards such as D&AD,WARC Awards for Effectiveness, New York Festivals, and Effies. Kurio is part of SAMY, a global ecosystem of specialised and integrated marketing and communications solutions founded on consumer understanding and state–of-the-art-creativity. SAMY has been nominated by Financial Times as one of the Top 1000 fastest growing European companies for five consecutive years and with almost 1000 professionals operating in over 55 markets.

Get the report here.