Cannes Lions 2026 has announced its Grand Prix winners in five of the festival's most closely watched tracks: Creative Data, Direct, Media, PR, and Social & Creator. The announcement, reported by LBB (Little Black Book), confirms the top honors across a group of categories that together account for some of the largest entry volumes at the festival and often set the tone for the overall Agency and Network of the Year races.

Which categories have decided their Grand Prix winners?

The five tracks now decided at Cannes Lions 2026 are:

• Creative Data — the award for work where data use, application, or interpretation drives the creative idea
• Direct — honoring response-driven and targeted communication
• Media — the category that rewards strategy, planning and execution behind the placement of ideas
• PR — recognizing work where earned influence is central to the campaign
• Social & Creator — the track covering social platforms and creator-led work

Each of these categories awards a single Grand Prix, the highest honor on the Cannes Lions ladder, sitting above Gold, Silver and Bronze Lions. Winning one does more than decorate a trophy shelf: Grand Prix wins carry the heaviest weighting in the festival's scoring system that determines holding company, network and agency of the year rankings.

What does the announcement mean for the wider competition?

The Creative Data Grand Prix has become one of the most scrutinized prizes of the week, as juries in recent editions have used it to signal where they believe craft and technology are converging. The Direct and Media Grand Prix winners, meanwhile, traditionally move the needle on the Media Network and Agency rankings more than almost any other single award, given how heavily those categories are entered.

The Social & Creator track remains the newest of the five, introduced as part of the festival's restructuring of its social and influencer offerings. Its Grand Prix is watched closely as an indicator of how juries are valuing creator-led work relative to more conventional campaign structures.

The PR Grand Prix rounds out the group, a category where Cannes Lions voting mechanics — shortlisting, tiered jury deliberation and a super-jury round for the top-scoring entries — tend to produce some of the most contested decisions of the festival.

What happens next at the festival?

With these five Grand Prix decided, attention shifts to the remaining festival tracks still to announce their winners, and to the cumulative points race that will determine this year's top agencies, networks and holding companies. Full winner lists and jury citations for the Creative Data, Direct, Media, PR, and Social & Creator Grand Prix are available through Cannes Lions' official channels and LBB's festival coverage.

We will update this story with the individual winning campaigns, agencies and clients behind each Grand Prix as details from the announcement are published.