South Korea’s annual MAD STARS has unveiled the Marketing track and the first wave of speakers for its 2026 conference. Keynote speaker Raja Rajamannar, Senior Fellow and Former Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at Mastercard, will join leaders from Netflix, Dentsu, Unilever, POLA, Brilliant & Million, and TOYOKE in Busan for seven sessions examining the forces reshaping modern marketing and what they mean for its future.
The full conference program will feature approximately 40 sessions across three tracks.
A Conference Program Built for the AMPLIFY Era
The new three-track structure reflects some of the most pressing questions facing the industry today. Under MAD STARS’ 2026 theme, AMPLIFY, the tracks explore how AI is reshaping the tools and infrastructure marketers rely on, how creativity can retain its value in a market saturated with AI-generated content, and how marketing strategy can translate into measurable business growth.
The Marketing Track
The track comprises seven sessions, including a keynote by Rajamannar and six sessions exploring how brands can build distinctiveness and drive sustainable growth. Topics include brand identity, cultural relevance, urban wellness, and entertainment partnerships. Taken together, the sessions point to a broader shift in marketing: lasting brand value increasingly depends not on efficiency and optimization alone, but on a clear point of view, meaningful engagement with culture, and deeper relationships with communities and fans.
The Next Frontier of Marketing
In his keynote, Rajamannar will examine how emerging technologies, data, and cultural shifts are rendering traditional marketing frameworks and strategies ineffective, while the fragmentation of the marketing function points to an industry facing an existential crisis. Drawing on the concept of quantum marketing, he will outline why marketing must be completely reimagined and reinvented for the immediate future.
Rewriting the Brand
Takuma Kobayashi, Representative Director and President of POLA Inc., will present “Art-Driven Creativity: POLA’s Unique Approach to Brand Building,” exploring how the company works with world-class artists to build its brand differently from conventional luxury branding and marketing.
Emily Hyejung Lyu, Marketing Director at Unilever Carver Korea, will present “Brand Transformation: Social First Strategy,” drawing on AHC’s comprehensive brand transformation to outline a social-first approach centered on Culture, Community, and Content in the highly competitive K-beauty market.
Kinami Hasegawa, Executive Creative Director at Dentsu Inc., will examine how conviction and a distinctive point of view can create lasting brand resonance in “Rationality vs. Belief: Rewriting Luxury in the Age of AI,” asking what new possibilities remain for luxury in an age increasingly shaped by efficiency and optimization.
Culture as a Growth Engine
Titipun Tubthong, Head of Creative at Brilliant & Million, will present “Amplifying Global Brands Through Local Culture,” examining why localization built around language and copy alone often fails to connect with local audiences, drawing on award-winning campaigns for KFC, Vaseline, and Sting.
Kurando Furuya, Chief Executive Officer of TOYOKE Inc., will introduce “The SAUNAS Approach to Urban Wellness from Tokyo.” He will trace the evolution of sauna and bathing culture in Japan, discuss research on the potential health benefits of sauna bathing, and examine the growing urban sauna movement in major cities worldwide.
Deep Chhabria, APAC Creative Lead for Marketing Partnerships at Netflix, will present “It Takes Two to Trend.” The session will unpack how Netflix approaches storytelling and brand partnerships through a fan-first lens, and how treating entertainment as culture can help brands become part of cultural moments. It will underscore a central idea: “Attention can be bought. Amplification has to be earned.”
MAD STARS 2026 will take place from 26 to 28 August in the coastal city of Busan, South Korea, with events held at SIGNIEL BUSAN and across the Haeundae area.
For more information and full conference details, visit madstars.org.
