Kantar names top performing ads in Creative Effectiveness Awards India 2025

Kantar, the marketing data and analytics firm, has announced the winners of the Creative Effectiveness Awards India 2025, celebrating the country’s most impactful advertising of the past year. Based entirely on consumer feedback, the awards highlight campaigns that not only stand out creatively but also deliver measurable brand impact.

In 2024, Kantar tested over 12,000 ads globally, including 1,350 in India. The results are based on LINK, Kantar’s proprietary creative testing solution, and draw from what is described as the world’s largest database of consumer-tested ads. The India edition of the awards spotlights more than 200 standout creatives that succeeded across TV, digital, and influencer platforms.

This year’s winners include brands such as Hindustan Unilever, Godrej Consumer Products, Danone and Haleon, recognised for storytelling that combines cultural relevance with emotional resonance.

The 2025 edition coincides with the fifth anniversary of the awards in India. Kantar has introduced a new insight framework, 'Culture is the Context.' Creativity is the Catalyst. Impact is the Outcome. The framework is based on analysis of trends across languages, regions, and platforms over the past five years.

The report finds that storytelling grounded in specific, culturally relevant contexts, whether a festival ritual or a regional idiom, is consistently more effective. 

Execution remains a critical driver of performance. Ads that scored high in creative strength achieved an index of 120 on profitability metrics, compared to 88 for weaker creative executions.

Influencer marketing emerged as a significant tool for impact. According to the report:

• Influencer-led content had an average skip time of 17.8 seconds—2.2 times higher than traditional branded content (7.9 seconds).

• Visibility duration was 1.4 times higher, indicating longer viewer engagement.

• Influencer campaigns scored higher than traditional digital ads in brand awareness (8% vs. 6%) and message association (8% vs. 7%).

“67% of consumers trust influencer recommendations more than traditional ads,” the report noted, adding that only 4% of users actively avoided content promoted by influencers.

“The patterns we uncovered over five years show us what resonates deeply—stories rooted in culture, sparked by creativity and rich in emotional truth,” said Prasanna Kumar, head of the creative domain, Insights Division, Kantar. “But to turn resonance into results, brands need more than instinct. That’s where Kantar LINK comes in, bringing the voice of the consumer, the ultimate stakeholder, into the creative process.”

Commenting on this year’s winners, Soumya Mohanty, Managing Director & Chief Client Officer- South Asia, Insights Division, Kantar said, “As we celebrate five years of the Creative Effectiveness Awards in India, it’s clear that creative evaluation has shifted from a checkpoint to a true growth driver. With content tailored for varied platforms and audiences, Kantar LINK helps brands test and optimise creative across formats- from TVCs and digital films to influencer collaborations. While influencer content drives short-term attention and sales, its full potential emerges when crafted with precision.

Powered by the world’s largest creative intelligence database that’s built on consumer-tested ads, analytics, and decades of insight, LINK enables marketers to move from guesswork to great work. This year’s winning campaigns from Danone, Hindustan Unilever, Haleon, and Godrej show exactly that- how culturally rooted, emotionally resonant storytelling drives real business impact.”

Kantar’s data also highlighted that brands benefit from anchoring storytelling in regionally familiar cultural cues rather than language alone, especially when targeting India’s non-Hindi-speaking regions.

With content formats and platforms rapidly evolving, the findings suggest that while formats may change, the fundamentals of strong, culturally attuned storytelling remain constant.