Tiger and Volkswagen clinch Top Spots in Kantar's 2026 APAC Advertising Effectiveness Awards

SINGAPORE, May 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Kantar has unveiled the winners of its 2026 Advertising Effectiveness Awards APAC, recognising the region's most impactful advertising campaigns based on consumer response and expert creative evaluation. This year's winners demonstrate how brands are cutting through an increasingly fragmented media landscape by creating immersive experiences, tapping into authentic cultural truths and reimagining everyday moments in unexpected ways.

Leading the Digital category is Tiger Singapore's 'Our Roar, Our Way', a powerful celebration of Singapore's SG60 milestone that captured national pride through a contemporary and distinctly local lens. Prada Australia's 'Hero PDX Lip Balm Gifting' and Penfolds Australia's 'Once Tasted, Never Forgotten' take second and third place, respectively.

In the TV category, Volkswagen Australia claimed the top spot with "The all-new Tayron - Why the long car?", an inventive campaign that elevated a product showcase beyond the standard auto tropes using transmedia innovation with their living print ad. KitKat India's "Break par sirf KitKat Break!" and Cadbury Chocobakes Cakes India's "Chocobakes Santa Film" round up the TV top three.

Notably, all top three winners in both the TV and Digital categories also secured recognition at the Global Kantar Advertising Effectiveness Awards earlier this year, underscoring APAC's growing influence as a global centre of creative excellence.

This year, the Awards also celebrated Campaign Effectiveness and the power of Creators through the Architect of Influence award.

Key Themes Driving Advertising Effectiveness and Fuel Connections in APAC:

Analysis of this year's winning campaigns revealed three common principles behind the region's most effective advertising:

1. Driving difference through deeper connection: The strongest campaigns built meaningful difference by creating immersive worlds and drawing on authentic human truths. By reflecting real experiences and emotions, brands made audiences feel understood while strengthening distinctiveness.
   
   
2. Elevating everyday moments into extraordinary experiences: Many winning campaigns transformed familiar situations into memorable brand experiences through emotional storytelling, rich sensory cues, and heightened creative execution, making ordinary moments feel more meaningful.
   
   
3. Breaking patterns to capture attention: Successful campaigns challenged conventions by subverting audience expectations. From creator-style content to television ads designed to resemble static imagery, these campaigns used surprise and disruption to spark engagement and drive stronger brand connections.

Commenting on the results, Irene Joshy, Head of Creative, APAC at Kantar said "Across APAC, the most effective advertising today is no longer just about capturing attention, it is about creating emotional immediacy and cultural resonance in ways that feel both authentic and unexpected. What stands out from this year's winners is their ability to make people feel deeply seen, whether through hyper-local storytelling, elevated everyday moments or by breaking familiar creative conventions altogether. In an increasingly fragmented and algorithm-driven media landscape, these campaigns demonstrate that effectiveness comes from combining creativity with human understanding, building experiences that audiences don't just watch, but genuinely connect with and remember."

2026 APAC Advertising Effectiveness Awards Winners: TV

2026 APAC Advertising Effectiveness Awards Winners: Digital

APAC Dominates New Global Campaigns Category

The newly introduced Campaigns category at the Global Kantar Advertising Effectiveness Awards found strong APAC representation. Three inaugural winners, including the first place, are all from the region.

Campaigns:

L'Oréal Receives Inaugural Architect of Influence Award

Kantar also launched the Architect of Influence Award in APAC, recognising brands that consistently deliver highly effective marketing at scale. The inaugural award was presented to L'Oréal in recognition of its sustained excellence in creative effectiveness and its ability to build influence across multiple campaigns and markets.

About the Kantar Advertising Effectiveness Awards:

Over the past six years, the Kantar Creative Effectiveness Awards have become a flagship global initiative - celebrating the world's best-performing ads through the lens of consumers. 2026 marks a pivotal evolution to integrate creative and media intelligence into one unified awards event - the Kantar Advertising Effectiveness Awards.

All the ads we showcase are brought to us by our clients and their agencies. We select our winners on a quantitative level from our LINK+ scores 'as judged by the consumer' and a qualitative level by review across the global creative team of our top scoring ads.

About Kantar:

Kantar is the world's leading marketing data and analytics business. We deliver the intelligence needed to power brand growth.

We provide the signals that help organisations act quickly and confidently. We empower brands to make effective marketing decisions based on predictive evidence. And we help them craft powerful growth strategies rooted in the connection between consumers, brands and enterprise value. All this is powered by our uniquely robust human and synthetic data, our unrivalled IP, our AI-native platform and the team of global brand experts that bring this all together.

SOURCE Kantar