MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Let’s get one important thing out of the way: Three Words by AXA Insurance took home the Grand LIA in the Non-Traditional category.
A brand idea designed to address domestic violence, Three Words broke away from the conventional path to brand building through contractual innovation and by embedding purpose directly into business policy. It’s business transformation with genuine social impact—deceptively simple in expression yet deeply unconventional coming from an insurance brand.
In many ways, AXA’s Three Words embodies what LIA defines as Non-Traditional: “ideas that are so unique, new and pure, that they cannot be labeled in a conventional way; work that is brilliant in its thinking and innovative in its execution.”
But judging this category also brought another insight to light: the growing push for digital to be non-traditional.
And that’s where this story begins.
Celebrating digital becoming Non-Traditional
It’s tempting to assume that when brands move from traditional ads to digital platforms, they’ve entered the realm of the unconventional.
But if you scan the digital landscape, you’ll often find TVC-style videos reformatted for mobile, key visuals repurposed as social posts, or radio-style spots streamed over Spotify. In short, much of digital advertising today starts and ends at traditional work delivered through digital means. This approach could tick certain tasks of the communications mix.
However, every so often, some brands break the cycle and go beyond—pushing digital ideas that redefine what “non-traditional” can mean.
LIA exists as “a champion of the creative process, creatives themselves, and of course, great creative ideas,” as its website declares. Guided by this declaration, a non-traditional approach to digital deserves a highlight.
The Non-Artificial Use of Artificial Intelligence
When AI is used with clear creative intent, it stops being a gimmick and starts becoming a genuinely unconventional solution.
- “Lidlize” for Lidl — Marcel, Paris
- “4th Judge” for The Ring — BigTime Creative Shop, Riyadh
Offline to Online, with the Brand at the Center Line
Whether it’s O2O or O2O2O, keeping the brand consistently at the heart of the journey separates campaigns that create new fan experiences from those that merely delight.
- “Cool Seats” for Gatorade — R/GA, Americas
- “Starring Bars” for Heineken — LePub, Milan
- “Gulf of Mexico (Bar)” for Tecate Light — LePub Mexico City
Use of Social That’s Actually Useful
In an over-saturated content ecosystem, any branded use of social media that doesn’t add to the so-called enshittification of the internet instantly stands out.
- “U up?” for IKEA — Rethink, Toronto
- “Vaseline Verified” for Unilever/Vaseline — Ogilvy, Singapore
Of LIA’s 30 categories, four focused specifically on digital creativity — Digital, Creative Use of Data, Online Film, and Use of Social Media & Influencer.
Meanwhile, within the Non-Traditional category, 260 entries were judged. About 11 individual pieces of work were digital-led—and eight of those went home with statues. Of the 35 awards handed out in total, roughly 13 came from entries where digital played a defining role in the actual work — a clear signal of how the category continues to evolve and how digital ideas are reshaping what “non-traditional” means today.
Redefining Non-Traditional for the Digital Age
Two decades ago, when I was a fresh-from-college copywriter, anything that wasn’t TV, radio, print, or outdoor was instantly considered non-traditional.
Fast forward to today — award shows now feature an entire ecosystem of categories that celebrate every permutation of creativity across platforms. The label non-traditional has shifted from describing media type to describing creative behavior.
During our first day of LIA judging, our diverse 10-person jury agreed on a shared definition. Then, jury president Marco Venturelli (Global CEO/CCO Leo Burnett, CEO/CCO Publicis Conseil, and CCO Publicis Groupe France) gave us three key filters for evaluating Non-Traditional work:
- Work that didn’t take the classic approach to problem-solving.
- Work that placed the brand or product at the core of the idea and execution.
- Work that carried a degree of difficulty in its execution.
As I reflect on those criteria now, I can’t help but think: remove the ‘Non-Traditional’ label, and these three should already define what great digital advertising is.
Ultimately, traditional digital ads will always have their place in the communications mix. But when a brand dares to layer in a non-traditional digital approach — one that’s purposeful, inventive, and human — it transforms the campaign from just another media execution into a brand-building moment that sticks, surprises, and satisfies.
And if this year’s body of work is any indication, this story doesn’t end here. It’s a creative cliffhanger — one that the clients and agencies themselves get to write, together.
adobo Magazine is an official media partner of the 2025 London International Awards.
