ADFEST 2025 – Where collisions ignite creativity

IN a flash, Asia’s biggest creative festival, ADFEST 2025, is over. With over 900 delegates from 30 countries, it was a melting pot of ideas, insights, and inspiration. Over three days, minds collided with the ever-changing landscape of advertising, creativity and technology through sessions, workshops, exhibitions, screenings, and some partying disguised as networking.

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From Day One, two things stood out: collisions fuel creativity, and the elephant in every room is Artificial Intelligence. AI has taken up so much space in our industry that it may as well have had a VIP seat at the festival. But the consensus was clear: AI is here to take over mediocrity, not creativity.

The takeaways

Everything starts with tension, as Juan Hin Tay from The One Club for Creativity explained. Conflict is essential to creative breakthroughs – a theme that resonated throughout the event. Black Cat White Cat’s Eric Seiya Matsumiya and Erik Reiff expanded on this, highlighting how creativity often emerges in the “in-between” moments when different cultures and ideas collide. These collisions aren’t obstacles – they’re fertile ground for great ideas.