As some of the world’s biggest names in advertising, marketing and creativity descend on Busan, South Korea, for MAD STARS this week, B&T sat down with the festival’s chairperson, Taeyoul Park, to talk about the ideas, industries and cultural shifts putting Korea firmly on the global marketing map.
From K-Beauty and K-pop to Squid Game, South Korea’s cultural influence has become impossible for global marketers to ignore. But increasingly, it’s not simply what Korea is exporting that’s attracting attention, it’s how its brands and businesses build fandom, move at speed and turn cultural moments into commercial ones.
Those themes run through the MAD STARS conference this year, where conversations span AI and human creativity, fandom and culture, brand growth, social-first marketing and the increasingly complex relationship between global brands and local audiences.
So what can international marketers learn from Korea right now? Park talks B&T contributor and Cairns Crocodiles content director, Pippa Chambers, who is attending the festival, through the forces shaping the market, what visitors should be watching, and his insider’s guide to getting the most out of 48 hours in Busan.
B&T: For anyone who hasn’t been before, what exactly is MAD STARS and what makes it different from other global creativity festivals?
Taeyoul Park: MAD STARS is one of Asia’s leading global creative festivals, spanning marketing, advertising and digital content. Since launching in 2008, it has grown well beyond an awards event into a platform where ideas, people and business from around the world come together.
This year, more than 350 jurors from 83 locations are involved in the judging process, with 43 members of the Final Jury from 28 locations gathering in Busan. Alongside the awards, we have around 40 conference sessions, an exhibition of Professional Division finalists, the Business Market, the Young Stars and New Stars MAD Competitions, and a variety of networking programs.
What makes MAD STARS distinctive is how these diverse programs and experiences come together to connect ideas, people and business. Through the awards, you can discover outstanding ideas and campaigns from around the world. At the conference, you can hear from some of the industry’s leading minds. In the exhibition and Business Market, you can explore the work and emerging solutions up close, and in the evening, those conversations can continue face to face. Young Stars and New Stars also play a pivotal role in MAD STARS, giving the next generation of creatives the opportunity to be judged by, receive feedback from, and engage directly with global industry leaders.
We began in Asia, but our ambitions have always extended far beyond the region. MAD STARS is designed to connect the dynamism of fast-changing Asian markets with the global creative industry, providing a place where ideas from different markets and cultures can be evaluated, discussed and understood on equal terms. Next year, as we mark our 20th anniversary, we plan to expand AI-powered multilingual access across the festival. The AI-powered translation introduced in this year’s exhibition, together with multilingual interpretation for the conference, is the first step.
Ultimately, we want to create a global festival where great ideas are not limited by language or geography but have the opportunity to be discovered and recognized wherever they come from.
B&T: Why Busan? What does the city bring to the MAD STARS experience?
TP: Busan is more than the host city for MAD STARS. The city itself is part of the festival experience. Busan has long connected with the world through film, media and content, and built a strong international profile through events such as the Busan International Film Festival. Just last month, Busan hosted the 48th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, bringing international delegations and heritage experts together in the city. That spirit of openness and global connection closely reflects the vision of MAD STARS: connecting creativity across countries and cultures.
There is also something very practical about Haeundae. With MAD STARS centered at Signiel Busan hotel and across the surrounding area, people do not simply leave when the conference sessions finish. They have dinner nearby, move on to a networking event, and continue conversations with people they met earlier in the day. Conversations that begin in a formal session can naturally continue beyond the venue, across the city. That is one of the advantages of holding MAD STARS in Busan.
A great festival should send people home with more than notes from sessions. It should leave them with new thinking and new relationships. The opportunity to take away industry insight, a stronger network and a genuine experience of Busan at the same time is, I think, one of the reasons MAD STARS is worth making the trip for.
B&T: Who comes to MAD STARS, and how international is the crowd today?
TP: At MAD STARS, you will meet not only advertising agency creatives, but also brand marketers, platforms and technology companies, media, production, data and ad tech businesses, and the next generation of industry talent. A campaign today is rarely the product of an agency working alone, so the festival has evolved to reflect the way the industry itself now works.
The diversity of this year’s jury is a clear reflection of that breadth. Our Preliminary Jury comprises 313 jurors from 83 locations, while the Final Jury brings together 43 jurors from 28 locations. Leaders from Mastercard, TikTok, Google, AKQA and MONKS are involved, alongside senior figures from VML, Publicis, Ogilvy, Dentsu, TBWA, McCann and many others.
But the international character of MAD STARS goes well beyond a few headline speakers or jurors. It runs through the juries, speakers, attendees, media, partners and emerging talent. This year, Young Stars brings together 93 participants from 10 locations, while New Stars has 63 participants from nine locations.
One of the most valuable things about MAD STARS is that different career stages and different markets genuinely intersect. A global CCO may be looking at work in the same space as a junior creative just entering the industry; a brand leader may find themselves in conversation with someone from an independent agency in another market. That intersection of generations and markets is one of MAD STARS’ real strengths.
B&T: South Korea is having an extraordinary influence on global culture, from entertainment and beauty to technology and brands. How is that reflected at MAD STARS?
TP: One of the most interesting shifts in recent years is that Korean culture is no longer simply something the world consumes. The methods behind its success are increasingly influencing how global brands think about audiences and culture.
Fan participation, community building, rapid adoption of new platforms, and the convergence of content and commerce are no longer uniquely Korean phenomena. They have become important parts of the global marketing vocabulary.
These shifts can be seen across MAD STARS in several ways. Unilever Carver Korea’s session examines how AHC is using a social-first strategy to transform a K-Beauty brand. Netflix’s Deep Chhabria will share a fan-first approach to brand partnerships, drawing on experience with global titles including Squid Game. Korean creative and marketing leaders are also participating throughout the judging and conference, bringing the realities of this market into a broader international conversation.
I do not think Korea’s strength lies in any single category. Its real strength lies in how quickly cultural ideas can become content, gain momentum through platforms and communities, and ultimately translate into value for brands and businesses.
MAD STARS offers a chance to look beyond the finished output of K-culture and get closer to the strategic and creative thinking behind it.
B&T: For international visitors wanting to better understand the Korean advertising and marketing industry, what should they be looking out for?
TP: I would look for three things: speed, cultural fluency, and the ability to connect platforms with business outcomes.
Korea is a market where new platforms and shifts in consumer behavior can take hold very quickly. But speed alone is not the point. What matters is how quickly brands and agencies can read a cultural signal and turn it into something relevant: content, commerce, a social interaction, a brand experience or an offline activation. Those elements are often treated as one connected ecosystem rather than as separate channels.
I would also encourage international visitors not to limit themselves to the conference. Spend time with the Professional Division finalist exhibition and the Business Market. The sessions can tell you where the industry is going, while the work shows you how brands and agencies are solving problems now. This year, the Business Market will feature companies working across AI and AdTech, content and video, and marketing. It offers a chance to see how technology and creativity are coming together in practice.
Most importantly, take the time to connect with Korean participants. There is a great deal of market context behind a campaign that never makes it into an awards case. Ask why an idea worked here and why consumers responded to it the way they did. These conversations can be one of the fastest ways to understand how the Korean market really works.
B&T: What are the big themes and conversations you expect to dominate MAD STARS this year?
TP: This year’s theme is ‘Amplify’. We chose it because the industry has reached a point where the most useful question is no longer simply what technology can do, but what technology can enable people to do better.
The conversation around AI has matured considerably. The question is no longer whether we are going to use AI. We already are. The more important questions are about the role of human judgment, creativity, ethics and cultural understanding in an AI-enabled industry, and about how AI can create meaningful brand and business value rather than simply generating more content.
You can see that conversation running across this year’s conference: from AI ethics and human creativity to fandom and culture, brand growth, data and OOH, social-first strategies, and the relationship between global brands and local culture. It is also reflected in the awards itself. We have introduced a new Use of AI sub-category within the Craft Section, together with an AI usage disclosure requirement. We have also introduced Health Stars and restructured the Positive Impact Group. So, ‘Amplify’ is not simply a theme on the conference stage; it is reflected in the awards structure and in how we are evolving the festival itself.
Ultimately, the question we want to ask at MAD STARS this year is not, “What can AI make?” but “What can we do better with AI?” Technology should amplify the reach and impact of sound judgment and strong ideas, not replace human creativity.
B&T: What are the sessions or speakers you think people absolutely shouldn’t miss?
TP: If I were building a short list, I would start with Raja Rajamannar. After 12 years as Mastercard’s chief marketing and communications officer, he has a rare perspective on how marketing needs to evolve at a systemic level. His keynote, The Next Frontier of Marketing, looks at how some of the assumptions that have shaped modern marketing need to be reconsidered as technology and consumer behavior change.
On the creative side, there are several very different perspectives worth putting alongside one another. Tara McKenty of AKQA will explore the relationship between human imagination and technology in Creative Intelligence: Where Human Imagination Meets Technology. Noël Bunting, Chief Creative Officer of Publicis London, asks a deliberately difficult question in Is Ethical AI Possible? And sessions from Sandipan Bhattacharyya of Monks and Fabio Seidl of Digitas North America bring further perspectives on attention, AI, fandom and culture. Taken together, they offer distinct perspectives on the same underlying question: what remains distinctively human as AI becomes part of the creative process?
I would also make time for the Conversation with Executive Jury on 26 August. It brings leaders from TikTok, Google, Mastercard, Monks and AKQA together at the same table. That is a rare opportunity to hear how people operating across very different parts of the industry are assessing creativity right now.
For those more focused on brands and business, 28 August has a particularly strong lineup. Across sessions from POLA, Unilever Carver Korea, CHANDO, Trip.com and Netflix, you can compare different approaches to brand building, transformation, growth and cultural relevance across Japan, Korea, China and global platforms.
And I would strongly recommend Galing Pilipinas, our first Country of Focus initiative. Through Dennis Perez, Merlee Jayme and David Guerrero, it offers three distinct perspectives on Philippine marketing and creativity. It is also a very good expression of the diversity of Asian creativity that MAD STARS wants to bring to the global conversation.
B&T: What’s your advice for someone attending MAD STARS for the first time? How do they get the most out of the three days?
TP: My first piece of advice would be to experience MAD STARS as a whole, rather than as a series of individual sessions.
Start with the conference to discover new perspectives, explore creativity from around the world in the Professional Division finalist exhibition, and meet people shaping the industry through the Business Market and networking programs. Each program offers a different experience, but for me, MAD STARS is at its best when those experiences come together.
Second, make sure to leave your evenings open. The day does not end when the conference sessions finish. We have networking opportunities each evening, giving you the chance to continue conversations that began in a session or at the exhibition in a much more relaxed setting.
And finally, I would not measure a successful festival by how many business cards you collect. I would focus instead on having a few meaningful conversations with the people you meet. Ask people what challenges they are working through this year, which markets they are focused on, and which campaigns have caught their attention. Those conversations can naturally lead to new relationships or even future collaborations.
For me, getting the most out of three days at MAD STARS is less about how much you see than about the quality of the ideas and people you discover.
B&T: Beyond the official programme, where does the real networking happen?
TP: We do not treat networking as an add-on at MAD STARS. It is one of the reasons a global festival still matters: you can sit down with people you may otherwise know only through email, a screen, or their work.
The official events create the starting point. After the Opening Ceremony & Gala on 26 August, the Galing Pilipinas Networking Party takes place at Lilikoi Haeundae, combining Filipino food, drinks and cultural experiences with industry networking. On 27 August, we have an industry Networking Party at OASE BUSAN, and on the final evening, the Closing Party follows the Awards Show.
Those evening events are especially valuable because they give people a chance to connect beyond their professional roles. Someone you met as a juror, speaker, marketer or creative becomes simply another person across the table. A conversation that begins with, “What is the hardest problem in your market right now?” can sometimes become the beginning of a collaboration.
Another advantage is that this year’s main programs are concentrated around Signiel Busan and Haeundae. Networking happens naturally beyond the official events — in the hotel lobby, around the exhibition, over meals, and in the cafés and bars nearby. Because so much of the festival is concentrated in the same area, people can easily reconnect after the formal schedule ends, allowing conversations that begin during the day to continue into the evening.
B&T: Finally, give us your perfect MAD STARS itinerary: if someone only had 48 hours in Busan, what should they see, do and experience?
TP: If I had only 48 hours, I would treat MAD STARS and Busan as one experience over 27 and 28 August.
On the morning of the 27th, I would start a little early with a walk by the sea in Haeundae, then head to Signiel Busan and spend some time exploring the Professional Division finalist exhibition and the Business Market. Conference sessions run from the morning, and in the afternoon I would make sure to see Raja Rajamannar’s The Next Frontier of Marketing, then follow the broader conversation around AI, creativity and the future of brands through the afternoon. I would finish the conference day with Tara McKenty’s keynote, then head to the Networking Party at OASE BUSAN and continue the conversations that started during the day.
On the 28th, I would use the morning to see any work or Business Market exhibitors I had missed, then choose afternoon sessions based on what interests me most, from brand building and marketing to OOH. I would also make time for Galing Pilipinas, our first Country of Focus, to experience the energy and cultural perspective of Philippine creativity. At 5pm, the Awards Show reveals this year’s winners, and the Closing Party that follows is the right place to reconnect with the people you have met over the previous two days and bring the festival to a close.
In between, I would make sure to experience the city. You do not have to travel far from Signiel Busan to get close to the sea. Walk along Haeundae Beach, or take the Haeundae Sky Capsule along the coast between Mipo and Cheongsapo for a completely different view of Busan. And make time for local food: dwaeji-gukbap, Busan’s pork and rice soup; milmyeon, its distinctive wheat noodles; and, of course, fresh seafood.
For me, the best way to spend 48 hours at MAD STARS is to combine industry insights with everything Busan has to offer — from its sea and food to the energy of the city.
If you leave 48 hours later with not only a few great campaigns in mind, but new thinking, new relationships and a city you want to return to, that is what makes MAD STARS a truly memorable experience.
