Inside the jury room: Publicis Malaysia’s Emir Shafri on entertainment, tradition and the standout ideas from the ONE Asia judging

Publicis Groupe CCO Emir Shafri recently spent a few fast, lively days in Seoul judging the ONE Asia Awards – a show he loves not just for the work, but for its annual change of scenery and cultural flavour. Shafri found a mix of insights, delights, and the occasional reminder that creativity in this region is anything but predictable.

I had the joy of spending a few days recently in Seoul judging the ONE Asia Awards on the Brand and Culture panel. I’ve always loved ONE Asia for one simple reason: every year, it packs its bags and rotates host cities. Each year a new city, a new cultural heartbeat, a new creative pulse to soak in, while debating the best work from across APAC. And Seoul had soul by the truckloads. Over two days, Shun, Andrea, Joe, Belinda, Paul, Woori, Fan, Ploy, Ross, Joonho and I, under the watchful eyes of Kevin, Guan and Season who made sure none of us skipped jury duty for the bar, jumped across categories ranging from gaming to entertainment to effectiveness to SDG. Picture mental gear-shifting every 45 minutes. It was chaos, but the delicious kind.

The work that rose to the top shared a simple truth: people hate being interrupted, but they love being entertained. Especially in APAC: audiences are entertainment junkies to the bone, so if you’re not a part of the show, you’re simply in the way.

Hyundai’s Night Fishing had all of us forgetting we were watching a glorified product demo. Shot entirely on the IONIQ 5’s cameras, it was eleven minutes of sci-fi joy. The kicker? People paid to watch it in cinemas, in an era where people pay to skip ads. On the other end of the spectrum, the NZ Herpes Foundation turned stigma into a tongue-in-cheek national challenge minus the fear-mongering preachiness with Make NZ the Best Place in the World to Have Herpes. Ridiculous? Yes. Memorable? Absolutely.

Another pattern that emerged? Some of the freshest work was actually rooted in tradition. RC Cola’s Miracle didn’t rely on jumping on the latest TikTok trends (because “make it Gen Z”). Instead, they tapped into the country’s love for local nostalgia and pop culture, paying homage to the Filipino cult classic Himala by meticulously recreating its scenes, music, costume, set and even film grain. It was a love letter to ‘80s Filipino cinema disguised as an ad that made even the non-Filipinos in the room (that’s all of us except Joe) fall in love with the work.

Then, there was the Great In-Game Wedding for BGMI. Understanding that people game not just to compete but to socialise, they tapped into tradition. Inspired by India’s obsession with weddings, they recreated an authentic ceremony inside the game: not fiction, but for a real couple who met in-game. A genius way of making gaming socially mainstream yet locally rooted.

Not everything that impressed us relied on tech wizardry. In fact, some of the smartest work leaned into everyday truths: refreshing in a year obsessed with AI. KitKat’s Break Bar and took a humble Philippine behaviour, jamming random objects between shop door handles to signal “I’m on break”, and turned it into a functional KitKat-shaped bar. A simple, brilliant media placement hiding in plain sight that fused something deeply local with something deeply on brand.

Beyond the work, ONE Asia Seoul was a reminder of how rich and diverse APAC creativity is. The experience outside the judging room was as curated as the work itself: a modern venue in Itaewon, a traditional Korean BBQ feast, then a hanok reborn as a contemporary dining space. The mingling of APAC’s best creative minds and creatives from Seoul’s local scene made the conversation even richer: it turns out that this community are just as entertaining after hours as they are in the judging room.

ONE Asia remains one of the most meaningful shows in the region, not just because it celebrates good work, but because it celebrates the APAC creative community. And in doing so, it champions something bigger than trophies: ONE stronger creative community across Asia (pardon the pun). And if this community keeps learning from each other, celebrating each other, and pushing each other forward, APAC’s creative star will only rise higher.