Yesterday at The Mint in Sydney, Connecting Plots gathered a panel of creatives and strategists to tackle some of marketing’s thorniest challenges, unpacking award-winning work from Cannes Lions that proved creativity still reigns, but only when used with purpose.
“Just because you can make something doesn’t mean you should. Just because you can doesn’t mean it’s good,” declared Dave Jansen, CCO and creative partner at Connecting Plots, as he set the tone for the morning.
In a presentation that doubled as a reality check for marketers, Jansen warned of a tidal wave of low-quality content driven by tech and AI tools. “There will be, and already are, a deluge of shit that is going to come,” he said.
The session, Creativity In Crisis: Cannes Works That Fights Back, part of Connecting Plots’ ongoing “Calm in Creativity” series, opened with a sobering reflection on industry disruption.
“The world is pretty disrupted. Our industry is certainly incredibly disrupted,” said Jansen. “It’s probably going to get worse and quicker but creativity helps the cream rise to the top.”
He pointed to a 15-year decline in marketing effectiveness, mapped against a rise in short-termism and digital metrics. “The promise of pinpoint accuracy of digital is a bit of a myth,” he said. “It’s not how humans work. Marketing is a game of probables and likelihoods.”
Against that backdrop, the panel turned to Cannes Lions work that didn’t just look good or go viral, it drove real business outcomes by putting creativity to work in deliberate, emotionally intelligent ways.
The campaigns that stood out weren’t necessarily the flashiest or most tech-driven. Instead, they were the ones that forged a visceral emotional connection with audiences, showed up distinctively in their category and stayed laser-focused on brand relevance.
What separated these campaigns from the tidal wave of disposable content was their commitment to making people feel something.
As Jansen put it: “Feeling is the cheat code to get people to remember.” Each case study demonstrated that emotional impact and creative bravery are what truly elevate a campaign in today’s cluttered landscape.
Distinctiveness also played a central role, not in how loudly brands shouted, but in how sharply they diverged from category conventions. The most effective work wasn’t chasing trends, it was creating new reference points in culture. Add to that a fierce commitment to relevance, through tight strategic insights, cultural fluency, and platform fit, and you had a blueprint for creativity that not only cuts through but sticks.
The Work That Fought Back
On Budget Constraints: Budweiser Resale
Budweiser’s “Bud Resale” campaign cleverly demonstrated how a brand can punch above its weight by tapping into nostalgia and existing assets.
Created by Africa Creative, the campaign turned vintage Budweiser merchandise from past music partnerships, from collectible cans to tour jackets, into e-commerce gold, targeting genuine music fans through smart, strategic promotion.
Rather than invest in splashy new content, Budweiser celebrated its cultural legacy in music by amplifying the value of what it already owned, earning praise from the panel for its simplicity, emotional relevance, and budget-savvy execution.
On AI Without Losing Creativity: Daisy Fights Scammers
O2’s “Daisy” campaign, created by VCCP, is a standout example of AI used with purpose and wit. Daisy is an AI-powered grandmother chatbot designed to waste scammers’ time with charming, meandering conversations about her cat Fluffy, knitting, and fabricated personal stories, all while carefully avoiding sharing any real information.
Built in response to data showing one in five Brits experience fraud attempts weekly, the campaign cleverly subverts the stereotype of older people as scam victims. The panel praised Daisy as a strategic masterclass, combining viral PR, influencer amplification, and real-world utility, and hailed it as a rare, effective application of AI that actually makes people feel something
On Low-Interest Categories: Tide x Marvel
Tide’s “Collateral Stains” campaign proved that even low-interest categories like laundry detergent can deliver standout cultural relevance when paired with smart strategy and creative flair.
In collaboration with Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World, Tide shifted the focus from superheroes to the everyday people stuck in the blast zone, and the everyday stains that come with it.
From spilled coffee to guacamole splatters, the campaign used humor and immersive experiences, like a 5D screening where audiences were physically splashed during action scenes, to drive home the product benefit of Tide Oxi Boost Power PODS.
The panel praised the campaign for resisting the urge to insert the product awkwardly into the film. Instead, it created an entirely new entertainment layer beyond the movie, a fresh narrative that amplified both brand and fandom without disrupting the source material.
On Punching Up: Progresso Soup Drops
Progresso’s “Soup Drops” campaign delivered a bold, category-defying move that turned a heritage soup brand into a challenger. By launching limited-edition Chicken Noodle Soup-flavoured lozenges, soup you can suck on, Progresso embraced unexpected innovation with a wink.
Timed to National Soup Month and flu season, the product was both absurd and genius, instantly sparking conversation. The panel applauded the campaign for its creative audacity, strategic timing, and talkability, noting that it didn’t just claim comfort, it packaged it in a new format that begged to be shared.
On Relevance in the Wild West of Social: Vaseline Verified
Vaseline’s “Verified” campaign, developed by Mindshare and Ogilvy Singapore, turned social media chaos into brand credibility by embracing, rather than resisting, the thousands of TikTok hacks featuring its iconic Jelly.
Faced with a tidal wave of user-generated content and rampant misinformation, Vaseline created a system of scientific validation, testing popular online tips in a lab and awarding successful ones with a “Vaseline Verified” seal.
The panel praised the campaign for turning user behaviour into a strategic brand asset, highlighting that this wasn’t about abandoning control but adapting brand guidelines to suit the platform.
Across every case study, the common thread was clear: creativity works best when it’s wielded with intent, not indulgence. Whether it was breathing new life into old assets, using AI with empathy, turning niche categories into cultural talking points, or rewriting the rules of social engagement, each campaign rose above the noise by focusing on emotional resonance, strategic clarity and cultural fluency.
As the industry barrels toward greater disruption, the real challenge, and opportunity, lies in choosing what’s worth making. And as this panel showed, the most effective ideas aren’t always the loudest or the newest, they’re the ones that make people feel, remember and act.
