LIA 2026: Campaign Brief Asia’s six best Asia picks from the LIA Awards Las Vegas winners
The house always wins? Not necessarily. Campaign Brief Asia takes a look at six of our favourite Asia winners from this year’s LIA judging in Las Vegas.
The past 10 days have delivered some pretty good times at the LIA judging at the Encore Hotel in Las Vegas. There were old friends to catch up with, new ones to meet, plenty of great creative work to discuss. And, with the relative quiet of the past two years, it was good to enjoy Vegas without the big crowds. The restaurants were certainly easier to get into, too. Booking on the day was no longer a high-risk strategy.
But there are two very good reasons Campaign Brief Asia makes the annual trip to the LIA judging week.
The first is witnessing the LIA Creative LIAisons program, where 128 young creatives are flown to Las Vegas, put up in hotels and given four days of learning, inspiration and access to some of the world’s leading creative minds. All courtesy of LIA.
There really is nothing else quite like it. In terms of investment in the next generation of creative talent, it is a program that is absolutely without peer.
The second reason is, of course, the work.
LIA has a unique system whereby the young creatives get to sit in on the final stages of judging and witness the jury statue deliberations first-hand. They get to see how the big calls are made, how the arguments unfold and just how tough it can be to land a piece of work on the winning side of the table.
It’s an invaluable reality check and offers an experience that will stand them in good stead when many of these young creatives are themselves sitting on award-show juries in the years ahead.
And this year, Asia once again had plenty of skin in the game.
Thailand was the standout performer, but there were strong winners across the region, demonstrating once again that Asia continues to produce work capable of going toe-to-toe with the best in the world.
So, with the chips finally down and the LIA results on the table, Campaign Brief Asia has picked our six favourite winning pieces from Asia.
These aren’t necessarily the six biggest winners of the week. They’re our personal Campaign Brief Asia picks of the work that caught our eye and deserves to be highlighted.
#1 SHIELD INSURANCE: “AFTER SHIT HAPPENED SERVICE”
Agency: VML Thailand
Chief Creative Officer: Park Wannasiri
Creative Director: Wirunchana Kongrataporn
Creative Team: Teenamol Thamchamrus, Phanupong Cheepjittrong, Veerisa Leewattanakit
Director: Teerapol Suneta
Production Company: Suneta House
If there was a jackpot winner at this year’s LIA, Shield Insurance certainly had a good night.
The campaign, a series of 10 x 60-second films, humorously promotes Shield Insurance’s “After Shit Happened Service” — turning the traditionally dry and rational world of insurance into something entertaining, relatable and highly bingeable.
Rather than selling insurance as something you buy just in case, the campaign focuses on what happens when things inevitably go wrong. It successfully reframes insurance as continuous support through chaos, tapping into real consumer anxieties and behaviour while making a traditionally rational message feel like entertainment. The jury clearly liked the gamble, awarding the campaign the TV & Cinema Grand LIA, along with a Gold Statue.
That’s one hell of a winning hand.
#2 VASELINE: “VASELINE ORIGINALS”
Agency: Ogilvy Singapore
Chief Creative Officers: Nicolas Courant, Marco Versolato
Creative Team: Maggie Michella, Elder Caldeira, Sneha Sanil, Nusrah Nizam
Following the global award-winning success of “Vaseline Verified”, Ogilvy Singapore’s “Vaseline Originals” proves there was still plenty of money left on the table. The campaign won the Grand LIA in Business Transformation, alongside an impressive haul of 6 Gold, 3 Silver and 1 Bronze across other categories.
The idea tackles a much bigger shift in the creator economy: how brands can participate in, and benefit from, creator-led innovation at scale — while doing it ethically. That’s increasingly important in markets where social commerce and creator influence directly shape purchasing behaviour, and where questions around attribution, ownership and fair recognition are becoming impossible for brands to ignore.
#3 COCA-COLA: “DENTIST” & “CABLE GUY”
Agencies: Ogilvy Bangkok and Ogilvy Singapore
Chief Creative Officers: Thasorn Boonyanate, Nicolas Courant
Executive Creative Director: Nikhil Panjwani
Creative Team: Thasorn Boonyanate, Enkainia Lee, Grace Wong
Director: Wuthisak Anarnkaporn
Production Company: Factory01 Bangkok
Two films. One global platform. And a very Thai way of bringing it to life. “Dentist” and “Cable Guy” picked up the Grand LIA in Production & Post, as well as Gold, Silver and Bronze across other categories.
“The World Will Wait” is Coca-Cola’s global platform built around a simple belief: when it’s time to share a meaningful meal, everything else can wait. The challenge was to make that global thought unmistakably Thai. And the work does exactly that. Rather than simply telling Thais to stop and eat, the films remind us to actually be there when we do.
Because work can wait. Meaningful meals can’t.
#4 KFC THAILAND: “THE KAPRAO CRIMINALS”
Agency: Wolf BKK, Bangkok
Chief Creative Officer: Torsak Chuenprapar
Executive Creative Director: Pathida Akkarajindanon
Creative Team: Pandarie Somjit, Poomrapee Ongardvanish, Torsak Chuenprapar, Panupong Putong, Narada Kittikunokorn, Poomrapee Ongardvanish
Director: Teerapol Suneta
Production Company: Suneta House, Bangkok
This is probably Campaign Brief Asia’s favourite Asian film of the past 12 months. In Thailand, Kaprao isn’t just food. It’s practically a national institution and messing with it can get you into serious trouble.
“The Kaprao Criminals” takes that cultural obsession and turns it into a hilarious short film set inside a fictional “Unauthentic Kaprao Jail”, where every culinary crime is punishable by imprisonment.
Wrong vegetables? You’re in. Wrong basil? You’re in. Wrong format? Straight to jail. Even “Uncle KFC” himself finds himself behind bars. It’s a brilliantly simple way of reframing the debate around what constitutes an “authentic” Kaprao.
The message: there is no right or wrong Kaprao – just be clear about what kind you’re serving.
Funny, culturally sharp and beautifully executed.
Agency: Leo Hong Kong
Chief Creative Officer: Christopher Lee
Executive Creative Director: Halo Cheng
Creative Team: Wai Wong, Abbie Chan, Tom Tsang
Sometimes the safest bet is the one that comes from the heart. To rebuild pride, brand love and awareness, Leo Hong Kong knew traditional advertising wasn’t going to be enough. They needed to do something that could genuinely move people and, ideally, move the whole city. “Back to Kai Tak” did exactly that.
Rather than simply creating another fly-past, the campaign tapped into one of Hong Kong’s most beloved collective memories: the legendary Kai Tak airport.
It was a powerful piece of brand nostalgia, reigniting Hong Kongers’ emotional connection with Cathay by bringing back a moment that generations of the city remember. The campaign picked up 3 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze at LIA.
#6 VASELINE: “VASELINE AND THE REAL NIGERIAN PRINCE”
Agency: Leo Singapore
Chief Creative Officer: Ajay Vikram
Executive Creative Director: Asheen Naidu
Creative Team: Sergey Mast, Boston Ho, Eugene Yow
Director: Ibidunni Oladayo
Production Company: AMA Psalmist Visuals, Lagos
Now here’s a twist worthy of Vegas. Counterfeit Vaseline had flooded Nigeria to the point where the real and fake products were becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish. Rather than simply shouting louder about counterfeits, Vaseline found an ally who had his own experience of having his identity stolen: a real Nigerian prince.
By turning the fight against counterfeit products into a story about reclaiming identity, the campaign transformed a potentially damaging brand problem into a moment of national pride.
The result was an unexpected and highly entertaining way to get Nigerians talking about the real Vaseline. The campaign won Gold in Creativity in PR, along with 3 Silver and 3 Bronze.
And that’s our best hand. Six pieces of work from across Asia that Campaign Brief Asia thought were worth putting our chips behind from this year’s LIA results. See you at the tables next year.