Hyundai Motor wins Grand Prix, bronze at Cannes Lions 2026

Hyundai Motor has landed on the winners' list at Cannes Lions, the world's most prestigious international advertising festival, for the second consecutive year.

The automaker announced Sunday that two of its campaigns earned honors at Cannes Lions 2026: "Coqui Alarm," a campaign that reframes noise as culture, won the Grand Prix in the Audio & Radio category, while "Nameless Forest," a global ocean forest conservation initiative, took bronze in the Creative Data category.

Founded in 1954, Cannes Lions is now in its 73rd edition and draws more than 25,000 entries from around the world each year, making it one of the most closely watched events in global marketing.

"Coqui Alarm," this year's Audio & Radio Grand Prix winner, was a locally rooted brand campaign run by Hyundai Motor Puerto Rico.

The campaign responded to a social flashpoint: tourists had complained about the calls of the coqui frog — a symbol of Puerto Rican identity — prompting a backlash from local residents. Hyundai Motor Puerto Rico turned that tension into a brand moment by programming the actual coqui call as the door-lock alert tone on its rental vehicles. The campaign drew praise for helping tourists encounter Puerto Rico's iconic natural sound organically through a brand experience, fostering cultural empathy among both visitors and locals while reinforcing the island's cultural pride.

The Creative Data bronze winner, "Nameless Forest," is a corporate social responsibility campaign that assigns names to ocean forests — underwater ecosystems that, unlike their land-based counterparts, have long gone unrecognized — and registers those names on mapping services.

The campaign's central idea is to name marine ecosystems that fall outside legal and institutional protections, transforming invisible environmental problems into stories people can connect with.

A global ocean forest map built through the campaign records the newly assigned names and locations of each forest. It also incorporates satellite-based seaweed distribution data, marine environmental data, and management information such as whether a given area holds protected-zone status, enabling a comprehensive picture of ocean forest conditions worldwide.

Beyond its Creative Data win, "Nameless Forest" advanced to the finals in five categories, including Design and the Sustainable Development Goals, raising its profile in the global advertising community. The campaign drew praise for going beyond simple messaging to elevate ocean forest conservation into a broader social conversation, laying the groundwork for long-term public discourse on the issue.

Ji Seong-won, Hyundai Motor's executive vice president and head of brand marketing, said the back-to-back Cannes Lions wins — including a Grand Prix — show that the company's creative efforts and innovative brand marketing are resonating on the global stage. "Going forward, we will continue to expand our touchpoints with customers in step with changes in the consumer and media landscape, and we will keep producing campaigns that drive social change beyond the brand," he said.

Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor and Kia drew attention from the advertising world in April when their "Vision Pulse" technology campaign won two merit awards at The One Show and a bronze at Spikes Asia — both considered among the world's top advertising competitions.

Vision Pulse is an advanced driving safety technology that uses Ultra-Wideband radio waves to pinpoint the real-time location of obstacles around a vehicle, assisting the driver.

At The One Show, the campaign won merit awards in the Intellectual Property & Product Design and Experimental & Research & Development categories, while Spikes Asia awarded it a bronze in the Innovation category.

Earlier coverage: Hyundai Motor and Kia win honors at The One Show and Spikes Asia for their Vision Pulse driving safety technology campaign.