Innovation Lions: AKQA Denmark wins Grand Prix

AKQA's Copenhagen scooped the Grand Prix in Innovation for 'Sounds Right', a campaign for the Museum for the United Nations – UN Live/

The project was a global music initiative enabling nature to generate funding for conservation from its own sounds.

Launched for Earth Day, it aimed to highlight the impact of nature and encourage music fans to take action in protecting the planet. And as a part of the project, ‘Nature’ is now regarded as a artist on Spotify, boasting over 1,705,000 monthly listeners, top tracks or “timeless classics” such as Victoria Thunder, Queensland Rain Rhythm and Rain Sounds in Los Angeles, and a number of features on tracks performed by the likes of David Bowie and Brian Eno, Ellie Goulding and Aurora.

Commenting, Jury President Courtney Brown Warren, Chief Marketing Officer, Kickstarter, said: “The Grand Prix was awarded to ‘Sounds Right’ because it tackles nature conservation with creativity and a simple, yet innovative approach to shifting a cultural mindset. It’s an initiative with global scale, long-term impact, and one the Jury ultimately felt they’d be proud to have created themselves — the kind of breakthrough approach that reminds us why we do this work.”

The Gold went to FCB Chicago for 'Caption with Intention' for Chicago Hearing Society, Rakish Entertainment, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The initiative reimagines closed captioning—largely unchanged since the 1970s—as a dynamic and expressive medium. By using animation, colour, and variable typography, it conveys not only dialogue, but also emotional subtleties like tone, pacing, and speaker identity that hearing viewers often take for granted.

Silver Lions were shared between Ogilvy Health New York, with 'Baby Minder' for Eurofarma, and Monks Bogota, with 'Beer Retirement Account' for Poker Beer.

Bronze Lions were shared between FCB New York, VML Madrid/VML New York, and VML Bogota.

There were a total of seven Lions awarded in this category.

Stay tuned to find out what else has entered this year's awards throughout the week and keep up to date with our Cannes Lions 2025 coverage.