Ad Stars is gearing up for its festival, August 22-24, with a collection of speakers who will discuss the subjects that challenge and inspire the industry throughout the world, under the festival theme, Influence.

On the Open Stage, Ad Stars will host Creative School, which is open free-of-charge to anyone with an interest in commercial creativity. The Video Stage is also open to anyone and features successful branded content case studies and insights from creators and influencers.

Some of this year’s speakers are:

Alejandro Ortiz, vice president and creative director at Casanova//McCann in New York

Alejandro Ortiz has worked in creative hot shops all over the world, from Deutsch/LA and TBWA\Chiat\Day to Casanova//McCann, where he has been since 2006. One of the most fun projects he has ever worked on, he says, was Share-A-Coke 1,000 Name Celebration, a campaign of over 1,000 radio spots and songs inspired by people’s names. The campaign won the Ad Stars Grand Prix in 2018, and Ortiz is coming to Ad Stars to takes his audience behind the scenes of its creation.

Bharat Avalani, chief knowledge officer at the Asian Federation of Advertising Associations (AFAA), Malaysia

In a session called, Focus on Mattering, Not Marketing, Bharat Avalani will prove that people with purpose thrive, brands with purpose grow and companies with purpose last. He calls this “mattering”, and believes businesses that do “mattering” well generate five times the revenue of those that don’t. Bharat is a Unilever veteran and a storyteller at heart. He sits on the executive committee of the AFAA and on the Global Board of the International Advertising Association (IAA).

Ivan Codina, managing director – South East Asia, Japan, South Korea & Australia, LaLiga

Codina’s session, LaLiga in Asia: A Different Ball Game’ is going to lift the lid on how LaLiga is growing support for the Spanish football league in Asia, positioning itself as an entertainment company, rather than a soccer league. It will explore how LaLiga is using storytelling to successfully engage with passionate football fans and potential audiences across Asia.

Mike Sunda, strategy lead, MullenLowe Group Japan

Mike Sunda will explain how an insight-driven cultural strategy can change the game for brands ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Sunda leads planning on MullenLowe Group Japan’s Apple, Red Bull and Edgewell accounts, and launched Tokyo 20XX in 2017, a cultural insights specialism offered by MullenLowe Group Japan that connects brands with the city’s creator communities. Prior to joining MullenLowe Group Japan, Sunda wrote extensively about Japanese culture for global publications including the BBC, Vice and The Japan Times.

Mike Sunda

Minsoo Cho, former chief marketing officer at L’Oréal Korea 

Using real examples, Minsoo Cho will investigate the struggles and successes experienced by big consumer products goods (CPG) companies when it comes to digital marketing, revealing valuable lessons to be learned from other brands’ digital marketing experiments over the past decade. Cho will suggest a framework for the digital transformation journey, and her session will be especially relevant to marketers in the beauty, CPG or digital marketing field. She has 20 years of experience in FMCG marketing across Korea, China and Singapore.

Minsoo Cho

Seong Cheol (Bruce) Lee, sales director & Minkyung Lee, solution architect, Nokia Korea

The world’s first 5G mobile commercial service began in Korea and Nokia’s Seong Cheol Lee and Minkyung Lee will share their ideas about how 5G will affect the environment for consumers and businesses. This is an opportunity to be the first to know about new services coming to light, security in 5G, and the implications for marketers in the Zero touch era.

Minkyung Lee

YeonJeong Kim, head of global KPOP partnerships, Twitter

YeonJeong Kim will shed light on the global K-pop phenomenon and her role at Twitter, which includes driving #KpopTwitter communities via partnerships with leading Kpop artists/management companies and Korean broadcasters around the world. Before joining Twitter in 2015, YeonJeong was retail marketing lead at Microsoft Korea and head of brand communications at Adidas Korea, where she led marketing campaigns and partnerships during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. She can be found at @TheNolja on Twitter.

Sung Un Chang, chief executive officer and designer at Yolk in Seoul

In a session called The Power of Innovation, Sung Un Chang will share her own story of launching the Solar Cow project in a small village called Pokot in Kenya, Africa in 2018. The project won a 2019 CES Innovation Award in the category, Tech for a better world, an AidEx 2018 Innovation Challenge Award, and the iF 2018 Social Impact Award.

Hugh Connelly, executive creative director, Huge Singapore & Martin Riley, managing director APAC, Huge Singapore 

At Huge in Singapore, Hugh Connelly and Martin Riley are growing the agency’s client relationships across the Asia Pacific. Connelly currently leads the SK-II relationship in Singapore, bringing 18 years of experience building to the role, and is responsible for the creative direction and execution for major clients at Huge including Mentos, UPS and Airheads. The pair will shed light on their vision for Huge in Asia.

Shinichiro Muroyama, executive officer, Line Corporation, Japan

Muroyama’s session is all about tips on how to succeed in advertising. The executive officer and head of Line Corporation’s business strategy department will explain how the Line Platform attracts deep user engagement.

Ad Stars 2019 will take place at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Centre (Bexco) from August 22 to 24 2019 in South Korea, with more speaker announcements to follow shortly.

Find the full program or buy tickets to Ad Stars 2019 here.