ADFEST 2026 Day 3: Human+ Excels
ADFEST 2026 is now gearing up at PEACH, Royal Cliff Hotels Group in Pattaya, Thailand. This year it is welcoming 770 delegates from 56 cities who have been streaming through its doors since the start of the three-day festival.
ADFEST 2026 runs from 19th March to 21st March 2026 and is hosting is a full program to keep eager delegates busy, including 61 back-to-back speaker sessions, broadcasts at the breakout stage, interactive workshops, Production Hut hub and an exhibition of all the entries submitted for the Lotus Awards as well as presentations for the awards themselves.
PROGRAM SESSIONS
On the final day of the festival, the main stage was a hive of activity as delegates gathered throughout the day, ready to hear from the wide range of speakers and subjects.
Varun Khiatani , Co-Founder & AI Specialist, mktgstack, Bengaluru and Namrata Chawla, Co-Founder & Content Creator, mktgstack, Mumbai started the day off with “The Comfortable Lie of AI Adoption: A support group for leaders who’ve been pretending”. The speakers urged delegates to reorganize their structural ecosystems and incorporate AI as part of a new operating system, not just treat it as a separate tool.
Next up was Julian Boulding, Founder & President, thenetworkone, London and Bolor Narantsatsralt, Chief Marketing Officer, Pizza Hut Mongolia (Tavanbogd), Ulaanbaatar with their session, “Pizzas to Mongolia”. Launching a completely unfamiliar product into a new market is a major challenge for anyone. This session showcased a brilliant 35-year success from a young and dynamic country in Asia – where until the 1990’s, pizza was unknown.
As a precursor to the Young Lotus wrap up, the next session called “YouTube is the Epicenter of Culture” featured a panel of speakers, led by Geia Lopez, Head of Creative and Creator Partnerships, Google Southeast Asia, Singapore. She was joined by Supphasit Chokmongkolsatian, Chief Strategy Officer for Ogilvy Thailand, Bangkok; Sandipan Bhattacharyya, Chief Creative Officer of Monks/S4 Capital, India and Toy Watcharapruk, Managing Director of AnyMind Group. The session explored YouTube as the definitive Epicenter for modern brands.
The final session before lunch was an ADFEST favourite. “Google Presents Young Lotus Workshop 2026: UNBOUND: The Next Era of Creative Culture”. In this session, delegates got to see the progress and hear the finalists announced for the Young Lotus Workshop, an annual event that is run by ADFEST for up-and-coming creative teams. This year there were teams participating from 15 cities across the region. The session includes a summary of the creative brief and was presented by Wei Watthanasittha, Creative Partnership Lead from Google Southeast Asia, Bangkok.
Delegates saw the creative work developed by the top 5 Young Lotus teams selected as finalists.
The winning team for the Young Lotus Workshop is announced at the final awards presentation on Saturday evening, along with the team voted by ADFEST delegates as their favourite.
After lunch, Donal Keenan, Chief Operating Officer from D&AD in London presented “Creative Bravery”. In a world of endless content, safe ideas no longer move brands forward. He explored the power of creative bravery by unpacking creative work that truly resonates and drives brand impact.
Next onto the stage was a trio including, Julie Jihyun Kang, CEO, Flux AI Asia, Seoul; Ian Tae Woong Jeon, Founder & Director of Compound Collective and Director of Applebox Asia, SEA plus Joel Lim, Founder & CEO, Gengis AI, Singapore.
They presented “AI Unlocking Human Creativity: Redesigning Culture, Production, and Creative Reality” and examined how AI is reshaping the speed, structure and creative reality of production across platforms, direction and physical shooting environments.
Following on, Thanh Dao, Managing Director & Partner for Jung von Matt NERD, Ho Chi Minh presented “Building A Beauty Community for Gen-Z”. He showcased a transformational blueprint for building communities where Gen Z already gathers—not interrupting them but inviting them to play.
The penultimate session of the day saw Naved Qureshi, Country Head, Voxxy Media, Jakarta present “Creators. Content. Communities. Creatives. Commerce.
Creator Economy: Moving audiences from Awareness to Advocacy to Action”. Naved shared a practical ecosystem model that links creator output to both brand health and business outcomes through content repurposing, proof loops and KPI translation beyond just views.
For the highly anticipated final session of the day, ADFEST’s Grand Jury President, Yasuharu Sasaki, Global Chief Creative Officer for dentsu, Tokyo gave delegates the benefits of his direct experience at dentsu using AI. His keynote session, “HUMANIZING BRANDS: Creativity in the Age of AI” showcased the agency’s belief that the future lies in using AI to augment human intelligence and ingenuity.
BREAKOUT STAGE
On Day 3 of ADFEST 2026, the Breakout Stage was reserved for delegates that wanted to view “Juries Insights” – footage of award discussions, straight from the judging floor.
In the morning, juries shared their insights for Film Lotus, Outdoor Lotus, Press Lotus, Radio & Audio Lotus, Creative Strategy Lotus, Effective Lotus, INNOVA Lotus and Sustainable Lotus Award categories.
After lunch, delegates were able to view the Winners Showcase for Brand Experience Lotus, Commerce Lotus, Design Lotus, Digital & Social Lotus, Digital Craft Lotus, Direct Lotus, Entertainment Lotus, Film Craft Lotus, Media Lotus, New Director Lotus, PR Lotus and Print & Outdoor Craft Lotus from the Awards Presentation on Friday, 20th March, 2026.
INTERACTIVE WORKSHOPS
The final interactive workshop took place on Day 3 of the festival, attended by delegates who pre-registered for each event.
On Saturday, 21st March, workshop held in the morning was “Build Your Creative Taste: Judgement Masterclass for Human+ Era”. Vishal Sagar, Director (Brand, Creative Strategy & Social) from Black White Grey, Gurgaon helped attending delegates to strengthen their creative judgement, so that in an era of infinite output they can be more confident about making better creative choices.
Follow all the latest news and events via #ADFEST2026 #HumanPlus on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X and TikTok (www.tiktok.com/@adfestofficial). To view the full program, visit www.ADFEST.com
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