Uncomfortable truths about creativity’s future, unimaginable technology, revolutionising data, and regaining precious time. ADFEST’s latest group of sessions break through the boundaries of what you thought was possible. Can you afford not to hear them?

THURSDAY 19 MARCH | 11.15-11.50

From Insights to Impact: Creative Data that Amplifies Ideas

Ian Forrester, CEO, DAIVID, London

Matus Balogh, Global Client Partner, CreativeX, London

In a world where technology accelerates everything but attention, creative professionals face a critical challenge: how to use data to elevate rather than dilute human creativity. This session explores how DAIVID and CreativeX are building a HUMAN+ creative-effectiveness ecosystem that enhances imagination, empathy, cultural understanding and craftsmanship while driving measurable commercial impact.

DAIVID’s emotional and attention-based creative data uncovers what truly moves people, providing a deeper understanding of how work resonates across audiences and cultures. CreativeX embeds those insights into global production workflows, ensuring they empower creators rather than constrain them and enabling brands to deliver the right assets on the right platforms at scale. Together, the partnership provides a new, end-to-end model for strategy, quality and media decisioning. The session shows how this approach works in practice. Attendees will leave with a practical roadmap for adopting creative data within existing processes while strengthening, not sacrificing, creative excellence.

Forrester is Founder and CEO of DAIVID, a creative intelligence company that has built an AI which can predict the impact of creative. DAIVID focuses on the metrics that matter - attention, emotions, recall and next step intents - delivering data of huge depth, at great scale, to brands and agencies. Forrester built his expertise at L’Oréal, Nestlé, Tate & Lyle and Sony Pictures before joining Unruly in 2012. He was the first Insight hire for Unruly, going on to lead a global team that helped brands optimise video creation and distribution, and create several world-first insight products. More recently, Forrester brought his vision, innovation, analytical and data-storytelling skills to Whalar, where he is in the process of running world-first research projects and creating a unique ‘house of influencer insight’ positioning for the company by pushing the boundaries of research in influencer marketing.

Matus Balogh is a Global Client Partner at CreativeX, helping the world’s largest advertisers scale creative excellence and build measurement systems that drive meaningful improvements in media effectiveness and ROI. Before CreativeX, Balogh held senior roles at Amobee, Azerion, Hybrid Theory, and WPP’s Xaxis group, leading enterprise client partnerships across FMCG, retail, and performance-led categories. His work included global DSP and DMP strategy, CTV and audience innovation, clean room activation, and advanced measurement programmes that helped brands navigate major shifts in the digital ecosystem. Balogh also founded and scaled two consumer brands and co-founded an AI-powered Go-To-Market consultancy accepted into Innovate UK’s High Growth programme.

THURSDAY 19 MARCH | 12.25-13.00

It's About Time: People’s Borrowed, Not-Owned, Sacred Seconds.

Teodora Migdalovici, Creativity Ambassador, TheAlternativeSchool, Bucharest

It’s a paradox in our industry - the most lamented resource is time. Yet the very same players wailing about its absence tend to disregard its critical role in building campaigns that connect brands and people in ways that last (because they have substance). Trapped under the predictability of timesheets, professional creatives often forget time’s relativity and its generous plasticity. It’s not AI crashing through the gates of our industry that makes time relevance a hot topic. For the sharpest creatives, a mindful, emotionally intelligent, and culturally attuned approach to time has always been the bump key to unforgettable brand-building.

This talk invites the audience to switch off autopilot. Using case studies from around the world, Migdalovici will show how exceptional brands - and the visionary stewards behind them - have mastered time like no others, making the most of every second, transforming hours into enjoyable ad campaigns people queued for, and forging consistent, vibrant connections - all while building sound businesses in the process. Attendees will leave this session with the power to escape the dictatorship of time - by finally giving it the quality it deserves and looking with different eyes at the relationships they want to build with audiences.

Tedi Migdalovici has spent more than two decades opening international doors for local talent through training, educational travel, publishing, and curated industry events. She helped raise the competence bar in Romania while lobbying its creativity across major platforms from Cannes Lions and Creative LIAisons to Eurobest and Dubai Lynx. Her impact was recognised with Foreign Policy Romania’s People and Ideas Changing Romania for the Better Award, and the Dragan Sakan Award for Eastern European creative-industry impact.

She is a sought-after international speaker known for original perspectives that help audiences see complex industry challenges from unexpectedly persuasive angles. Her talks span London, Cairo, Paris, Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur and Tashkent, covering themes from EQ and brand personality to time plasticity, culture, character and spirituality in advertising. Her international distinctions include the Private Diplomacy Award, Brand Leadership Award, Global Super Achiever Award, European Excellence Award, a Stevie Award, and 40 Under 40 Managers (Business Magazine).

FRIDAY 20 MARCH | 10.05 – 11.40

The Uncomfortable Truth about The Future of Creativity

Ted Lim, Founder & Chief Creative Consultant, DIFF Creative Consultants, Kuala Lumpur

Andreas Moellmann, Founder, Brand & Marketing Strategy Advisor, FUTURE INC, Bangkok

“Artificial intelligence will do more of the same for less. Therein lies the opportunity for human intelligence to do less of the same for more.”

A Cannes Lions jury president, an Effie Awards jury chairman and a “sell-or-else” Chief Marketing Officer come together to discuss an existential crisis in the creative industry. Advertising revenues are evaporating, advertising agencies are folding, once mighty ad networks are crumbling and jobs are vanishing. Some cling to creativity, some put their faith in humanity, some embrace innovation, while others turn to artificial intelligence to churn out endless, faceless work for next to nothing.

Is there a future for creativity in the battered business of advertising and if so, in what shape or form will it take? What if? Why not? What’s next? Hear different sides of the story from two very different change-makers.

Ted Lim is one of Asia’s most respected creative leaders. The former Regional Chief Creative Officer at Dentsu Asia-Pacific, CCO at Leo Burnett Singapore and ECD at Naga DDB Malaysia, has worked from China to Australia to produce Innovative business solutions that get people to stop, stare and share, for global brands such as Coca-Cola, IKEA, BMW, Adidas, Uniqlo, Samsung and Singapore Airlines. Under his watch, Dentsu Asia-Pacific won the Cannes Lions Grand Prix, the D&AD Black Pencil, the Facebook Award for Innovation, the Asia-Pacific Effie Gold Award and was crowned ADFEST Network of The Year three times, and Campaign Brief Asia’s Most Creative Network twice. Lim now works as an independent creative consultant to advertisers, creative and media agencies.

Andreas Moellmann built and led strategy, digital and transformation practices for global networks including Publicis, WPP and Omnicom over a 30-year career across Europe and Asia, working in Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. He has helped shape brand and marketing strategy for FMCG, consumer electronics, telecoms and automotive - supporting brands such as Mercedes-Benz, Philips, Deutsche Telekom and Pampers. His work has contributed to global effectiveness and creative accolades, from Cannes to the Effies, working with leadership teams to turn brands into genuine business assets. His focus is on defining a company’s edge, sharpening narratives, aligning organisations, and building marketing systems that improve business performance. Today, he works independently across Asia-Pacific, advising leadership teams on brand positioning, marketing effectiveness and transformation strategy.

FRIDAY 20 MARCH | 11.15 – 11.50

When Thought Becomes Performance:

Designing Inclusive Futures Through Technology

Naoki Tanaka, Global Chief Creative Officer, Dentsu Lab, Tokyo

How can the creative industry move beyond inclusion as a tick-box, to build systems that allow more people to participate, perform and lead culture? This session will show you thinking that is remarkable. Attendees will gain rare insight into the technical, creative and ethical challenges of building human-first technology, and how agencies, brands and platforms can scale similar thinking in entertainment, marketing and experience design.

An example is project Humanity’s Waves of Will, a groundbreaking live performance where a professional dancer living with ALS controls a virtual body on stage using only her brainwaves. Created by Dentsu Lab in collaboration with NTT, the project combines neuroscience, choreography, creative technology and human-centred design. Tanaka takes attendees inside Project Humanity, an award-winning initiative that transforms cutting-edge research into cultural experiences. From early experiments translating bio-signals into sound to EEG-driven extended reality performance, the talk reveals how creative R&D can be used not as spectacle, but as storytelling.

Naoki Tanaka is a globally recognised creative technologist and innovation leader, and Global Creative Lead of Dentsu Lab. Based in Tokyo, he founded one of the world’s first creative R&D labs over a decade ago, pioneering a model that fuses emerging technology, design and human behaviour to create culturally impactful work. Under his leadership, Dentsu Lab has developed internationally celebrated projects across neuroscience, immersive experience, gaming, and accessibility, earning recognition from Cannes Lions, SXSW, the Japan Media Arts Festival, and global technology forums. His work sits at the frontier of creativity and engineering, translating complex R&D into experiences that move people emotionally and shift culture. Tanaka is a recipient of the Catalyst Award and served as a creative lead for Expo 2025 Osaka, recognised for pushing the boundaries of how technology can deepen human connection rather than replace it. His work is grounded in a singular belief - that innovation only matters when it expands human potential.

ADFEST 2026, Human+, will be held Thursday 19 – Saturday 21 March 2026 at the Royal Cliff Hotels Group in Pattaya, Thailand.

A must for the ambitions of all industry professionals., ADFEST’s 3-day event brings together the industry’s top minds, rising stars and most innovative ideas. With star-studded speaker sessions, workshops, screenings and networking events, register now to join us at the region’s most celebrated creative festival.

ADFEST is open fo delegate registration. For more information on delegate packages and fees, click here.

ADFEST is a not-for profit entity that believes passionately in its role to nurture and support the creative industry in the Asia Pacific and MENA region. It is 1 of only 7 regional creative festivals included in the WARC Creative 100 Rankings, 1 of 12 awards included in the Campaign Brief Asia Rankings, and 1 of 22 awards included in The Drum World Creative Rankings.