LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 6, 2026--
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has announced AB InBev (Brussel:ABI) (BMV:ANB) (JSE:ANH) (NYSE:BUD) as the 2026 Creative Marketer of the Year. The honorary accolade is presented to a marketer that has amassed a body of iconic, Lion-winning work over a sustained period of time. AB InBev’s continued commitment to using creativity as a growth lever across its portfolio resulted in it winning an impressive 37 Lions at last year’s Festival.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260506536538/en/
AB InBev is the first company in Cannes Lions’ history to be honoured with the award for a third time. Since 2021 the global brewer has embarked on a journey of inorganic to organic growth, betting on creativity as a key competitive advantage that has contributed to strong performance and increased revenues.
About the honour, Simon Cook, CEO, LIONS, said: “ AB InBev has embedded creativity into how it operates, not just how it leverages marketing, and it is consistently outperforming as a result. By prioritising creativity at a C-suite level and implementing an internal creative effectiveness system, it continues to demonstrate the clear and compelling link between creative excellence and commercial performance. This is a historic win, recognising a company that has made creativity scalable, measurable and sustainable across hundreds of brands globally.”
AB InBev’s published Q1 2026 business results demonstrate strong momentum across its global footprint, achieving all-time high revenues and increased beer volumes. Its focused and consistent consumer-centric strategy builds brands to drive sustainable long-term growth – with 20 “+1 billion-dollar” brands.
About the award, Marcel Marcondes, Global Chief Marketing Officer, AB InBev, said: “Creativity is always in service to driving growth. To be named Creative Marketer of the Year for the third time in the last five years reflects our consistent and sustainable approach to building brands people love. It’s also a credit to the amazing teams and agency partners we have around the world that are delivering all-time high revenues. Cheers to everyone that helped make this history-making recognition possible.”
At Cannes Lions the Juries have consistently recognised AB InBev and last year awarded work from 10 countries across a breadth of 15 different Lion Awards. Additionally, the Global Effie Index ranked AB InBev as the World’s Most Effective Marketer for the fourth year in a row, and in the Kantar BrandZ rankings, AB InBev brands lead the world’s most valuable beer brands, taking eight of the top 10 places, with Corona ranked number one for two years in a row.
AB InBev will open the 2026 Cannes Lions programme, delivering a keynote on the Lumière Theatre stage at 10am, Monday 22 June. Following this, it will be honoured as Creative Marketer of the Year at the final Awards Show of the Festival on Friday 26 June.
Cannes Lions will run from 22 to 26 June in Cannes, France. To view the full programme and see the range of Festival passes available, visit www.canneslions.com.
About LIONS
LIONS is the global platform that champions creativity and marketing effectiveness for growth. We help businesses grow through creative marketing that matters.
We know that creativity can and should be applied across the full marketing mix. Creativity is an impactful business driver - and when it's integrated with a culture of effectiveness, it's a competitive advantage.
Backed by over 150 years of experience and evidence, Cannes Lions, WARC, Effie, Contagious and Acuity - provides the global marketing industry with the definitive benchmarks, intelligence, training and tailored advice needed to grow.
LIONS is part of Informa PLC.
www.lions.co
About Informa
Informa PLC is a leading international B2B events, digital services and academic research group.
We champion specialists. Through hundreds of market-leading brands, we connect people with knowledge so they can learn more, know more and do more.
We operate in over 30 countries and serve businesses and professionals working in over a dozen specialist markets.
Informa is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 100.
www.informa.com
AB InBev Wins Cannes Lions Creative Marketer of the Year for an Unprecedented Third Time
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday that three patients with suspected hantavirus cases have been evacuated from an affected cruise ship and are on their way to the Netherlands.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the U.N. health agency is working with the operators of the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius cruise ship to closely monitor the health of passengers and crew.
“At this stage, the overall public health risk remains low,” he wrote on his X account.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak and which is stuck of the coast of Cape Verde with nearly 150 people on board was waiting Wednesday to head to Spain’s Canary Islands. Meanwhile, health authorities in South Africa and Switzerland identified a strain of the virus that can be transmitted between humans in rare cases in three cases.
Authorities in Switzerland announced Wednesday that a man who returned from South America and traveled on the cruise ship has tested positive for the virus and is receiving treatment.
Three passengers have died and at least five people have been sickened by hantavirus on board the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius cruise ship. Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings. There have been three laboratory-confirmed cases.
The ship left Argentina on April 1 on an Atlantic cruise and was scheduled to include stops in Antarctica, the Falkland Islands and other locations. However, the itinerary may have changed because of the situation on board.
Spain’s Health Ministry said in a statement late Tuesday that it would receive the MV Hondius vessel in the Canary Islands after a request from the World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
But for now it remains marooned off the coast of Cape Verde, an island nation off West Africa in the Atlantic. The World Health Organization said passengers are isolating in their cabins.
South African health authorities said they identified the Andes strain of hantavirus in two passengers who were on the ship.
The World Health Organization says the Andes virus, a specific species of hantavirus, is found in South America, primarily in Argentina and Chile.
The Andes virus can be spread between people, though this is rare and the spread of the disease is typically contained because it would spread only through close contact, such as by sharing a bed or sharing food, experts say.
The South African Department of Health said in a report that the information came from tests performed on the passengers after they were removed from the ship and flown to South Africa.
One of the passengers, a British man, is in intensive care in a South African hospital. Tests were performed on the other passenger posthumously after she died in South Africa.
A statement from the Federal Office of Public Health said that the man “returned to Switzerland after traveling on the cruise ship on which there were a number of hantavirus cases.” It said his case also involved the Andes virus.
It said he had returned from a trip to South America with his wife at the end of April. After noticing symptoms, he went to the University Hospital Zurich after consulting with his doctor and was immediately placed in isolation.
The patient’s wife hasn’t shown any symptoms but is self-isolating as a precaution, the statement said.
The public health office said that “there is currently no risk to the Swiss public.”
The WHO said in a social media post that the man responded to “an email from the ship’s operator informing the passengers of the health event” and went to the hospital.
The cruise ship will be welcomed to Spain’s Canary Islands, according to Spanish authorities, as the vessel waited off the coast of West Africa for a third day Wednesday for sick passengers to be evacuated.
However, the regional president of Spain’s Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, said Wednesday that he was worried the arrival of the ship could put the local population at risk and demanded an urgent meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
“Neither the populace nor the government of the Canary Islands can rest assured because it is clear that the danger to the population is real,” Clavijo told Onda Cero radio.
Medical evacuation teams were on standby Wednesday morning in the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde.
Associated Press journalists nearby saw a boat approach the ship on Tuesday night before turning back soon after. It was not clear what happened, or whether that was the evacuation team.
A night view of the MV Hondius cruise ship anchored at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
An aerial view of the MV Hondius Dutch cruise ship anchored in the Atlantic off Cape Verde, Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Arilson Almeida)
An aerial view of the MV Hondius Dutch cruise ship anchored in the Atlantic off Cape Verde, Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Arilson Almeida)
