As the awards season begins this September, it’s worth asking how we can we better promote Asia on the global stage.
If you ask most people what’s holding back Asian creativity, they’ll likely say visibility, language, or cultural difference. But this year’s Cannes Lions revealed a more unsettling reality: how little we understand each other.
During our session at Cannes Lions on 'How Asia Thinks: Beyond the Stereotypes, ' one of the most honest moments came from Pathida Akkarajindanon, a Thai creative and jury member. Akkarajindanon was blunt: “As Asian judges, we need to be more fluent in each other’s cultures—not just our own, if we’re going to support the best work coming out of the region.”
We celebrate Asia, but we don’t always understand it. The region is not one market but a mosaic of contradictions, symbolism, emotional nuance, and hyper-local references. Yet we often apply blanket expectations to work from neighbouring countries we barely know.
We see this in awards rooms and campaign reviews alike. What might seem overly sentimental in Japan can land as deeply authentic in the Philippines. And the same is true in other contexts: what reads as offbeat in India is brilliantly absurd in Thailand.
But what makes perfect emotional sense in one market often goes unrecognised in another. Without a shared cultural fluency, we can’t judge each other’s work fairly. And if we can’t do that, we can’t advocate for each other when it matters most.
Global attention is rising, but internal solidarity is lagging
This year, Asia had a strong showing at Cannes with five Grand Prix taken home by India, Singapore, China and South Korea. Singapore also took home a Titanium to top off the awards haul. But we still need more support, and not just from the West. We need to build that support inside our region, too.
If work from Asia is only ever championed by its country of origin, it won’t break through globally. It’ll get lost in translation, or worse, overlooked entirely. This isn’t just a creative problem but a mindset one.
Understanding each other is a creative skill that can shift the narrative, not just at Cannes, but in briefs and boardrooms. We need to start building cultural literacy into how we create, judge, and share ideas.
This means showing up to support regional work, not just within our countries but in global arenas. And supporting other creatives mean being generous in how we decode unfamiliar creative styles, emotional codes, and humour. As an industry, we also need time to understand why a piece of work resonates in its market and just how it looks on a reel.
Without this, we’ll keep playing small—individually applauded, but collectively invisible.
Asia has never had more creative talent, cultural momentum, and opportunities on the global stage. But if we want that momentum to stick, we need to stop waiting for the world to get us and start backing each other.
Because the future of Asian creativity isn’t just about being seen, but more about being seen by each other.
David Guerrero is the chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO Guerrero.
