TODAY'S EDITION 03/30/2026

Latest

Honda Office launches Southeast Asia PR network for Japanese clients

Exclusive: Senior communications leaders across six ASEAN markets will advise Japanese brands expanding beyond Japan.

Event Marketing 2026 shortlists announced

See which events made the cut across more than 40 categories, spanning campaign, people, team, and agency accolades.

No TVC, no YouTube ads, millions sold: APAC CMO Eugene Lee on turning Chagee into a cultural phenomenon

The CMO's MO: Tea is the world's second most-consumed beverage. Eugene Lee on the social-first, experience-led playbook behind one of the most ambitious brand-building bets in the F&B sector.

Singapore-based Rice Media acquired by social media agency

Financial terms of the deal and potential headcount changes were not disclosed.

Grimace takes over Singapore commutes in McDonald’s AR campaign

Turning dull bus stop waits into quick-hit AR gameplay with Grimace, McDonald’s Singapore targets Gen Z in moments of idle attention.

The Knowledge

Starcom tops first APAC 2026 rankings on Flipkart win, independents follow

WPP leads the holding group rankings, buoyed by Jaguar Land Rover and Estée Lauder wins.

Be more punk: Why design needs to get messy again

Brands must embrace counter-culture, RGA APAC's Ben Miles opines. As AI takes over the predictable, the creative industry's greatest asset is its humanity.

Creative Minds: From the Senate to adland, Jonel Revistual detoured his way to copywriting

The Dentsu Creative ACD spent years wandering through broadcast, activism, and spoken word poetry before finding his calling.

If every consumer sees a different ad, who’s left to share the story?

There was a time when a Diwali ad gathered a nation into one feeling, one story, one memory. Today, those moments are fractured into personalised prompts. In chasing efficiency, Joshi writes, brands might lose the connections that once made them matter.

The Trade Desk says Omnicom audits ‘have not identified any issues’

The DSP pushes back on Omnicom’s audit as routine oversight, even as its shares tumble around 7% in intra-day trading.

Women’s sport has arrived, the brands haven’t

Women’s sport in APAC has outgrown its untapped potential tag with explosive viewership and year-round fandom, yet brands haven't caught up, says We Are Social's Suzie Shaw.

OpenAI shuts down Sora, billion-dollar Disney deal comes to an end

The generative AI video app, positioned as a breakthrough in text-to-video technology, has been scrapped less than two years after its launch.

Laopu Gold’s 221% revenue jump points to new rules of premium in China

The 'Hermès of Gold' just proved that in China, heritage, scarcity and price hikes are the new definition of premium.

The Work


Telstra turns up the volume on e-waste

In a world producing 7kg of e-waste per person, Telstra promises to give every second device a second life by 2030.

Watch


OPINIONS

In an age of direct buying, what exactly is a DSP for?

The spat between Publicis and The Trade Desk is an overdue reckoning with misaligned expectations between auditors, agencies and adtech platforms, as direct buying becomes cheaper and easier.

'There has always been a tax collector in your tech stack'

The TTD-Publicis fallout just made it impossible to pretend otherwise.

Why the ChatGPT uninstall wave is a brand story, not a tech story

When a defence contract determines whether people will use that AI, we have moved beyond features. Something deeper is happening, opines Sanat Sinha.

Why the messy middle of the 'sandwich years' makes the best leaders

The sandwich years are hard. Parenting, parents and a high-pressure professional role, all at the same time.

The Iran war will not hit APAC advertising the way many assume

‘China is still the strategic variable,’ Whittaker writes, as a more fragmented APAC advertising landscape could blunt the risk of a single shock hitting all markets equally.

Why marketing needs a more human story of health

Wellness marketing in Asia often glorifies perfection. Stuart A Spencer argues brands should focus on everyday progress if they want to make healthier lives feel possible.

WPP's Elevate28 is a white flag, not a victory flag

The $676 million savings plan is an exercise in juniorisation, centralisation and using AI as a shield to cut senior staff, writes a veteran of the "now-defunct holdco model."

Why age diversity still struggles for airtime?

Too many people plan their exit from advertising by 40, convinced experience has an expiry date—an outdated bias, one agency founder says it's time to dismantle.


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