In June 2025, I attended creativity’s biggest global stage: the Cannes Lions. And while the ideas were bold and the networking non-stop, one thing stood out: Asia, with a few exceptions like Cheil, Samsung, and RedNote, was nearly invisible.
As someone who has led a Shanghai-based digital agency for over a decade and seen the breakneck pace of innovation in China, I couldn’t help but feel the silence. Not because Asia lacks the work—but because it wasn’t part of the conversation.
Though Asia took home five of the 34 Grand Prix, represented by India, Singapore, South Korea, and China, the region still has much more that it can offer.
Asia’s Absence is a Missed Opportunity
Cannes Lions is more than an award show. It’s where global influence is shaped. For brands with international ambitions, showing up matters. Yet too many Asian players view Cannes as a Western affair, and that mindset is costing us.
Asia – and especially China – is not trying to catch up anymore; in many areas, it’s setting the pace.
Yes, it can be easy to dismiss Cannes as a boozy schmooze-fest in an ivory tower, but it’s also undeniable that it becomes the focal point of the entire global marketing world every year for a few weeks. It’s also one of the few events where influential players from global consumer and tech brands to star athletes/artists convene in one place.
To put it another way, if you aspire to be one of the above (or would like access to them), then missing Cannes is like missing the World Cup as a footballer – it’s not fatal by any means, but it could be a massive opportunity cost.
As I say this, I recognize that it’s quite understandable why many Asian (especially Chinese) players haven’t shown up. Less than a decade ago, the West was still the undisputed leader in tech and digital innovation within the marketing world. Short-form vertical video was still associated with Vine, Snapchat was the hottest new social app, and search was still utterly dominated by Google.
Asia was frankly still playing catch-up, without much to say even if we did take to the global stage. Thus, we were content to just watch and learn from afar. But that’s hardly the case anymore.
From social search and social commerce to the creator economy and experiential marketing, Asia – and especially China – is not trying to catch up anymore; in many areas, it’s setting the pace. The global marketing world at Cannes is talking about the future we’re already living in.
Western Platforms are Doing the Copying now
Ever since TikTok took the world by storm, the Chinese company has flipped the narrative of social media innovation on its head, revolutionizing the industry in so many ways that Instagram – the global king of social media – and even YouTube, have been scrambling to copy the short form video product.
But that was just the beginning; then came live streaming, social commerce, and now social search. All pioneered by TikTok, who in turn was just exporting these innovations from the China market. All of these “emerging” features and trends are already quite mature in China and Southeast Asia, and the speed of innovation is only increasing.
Just this year, the famous Chinese livestreamer Luo YongHao executed an entire livestream using just his AI avatar, and raked in $7.6 million in sales from that session alone, performing even better than his own live stream session.
Experience is the Strategy, Not the Stunt
One of Cannes’ showstopper campaigns that was the talk of the industry was the “Severance” subway experience at Grand Central Station. An impressive stunt for sure, but viral subway experiential marketing has been the norm in China for years now.
In fact, Shanghai Disneyland created an immersive subway experience using only existing digital billboards for the launch of the world’s first Zootopia park in 2023, sending Zootopia characters into subway stations to commute to and from work alongside Shanghai commuters.
The experience went viral on social media, which attracted even more people into the stations to experience it, building sustained organic hype that wasn’t just an expensive one-off stunt.
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In China, experiential marketing isn’t just a PR stunt – it’s a deliberate content engine. Offline experiences drive online sharing, which funnels into conversion, and every brand moment is designed for virality that drives business results.
In China, experiential marketing isn’t just a PR stunt – it’s a deliberate content engine.
Even product IPs are deliberately grown into fandoms; Disney’s LinaBell and Popmart’s Labubu are billion-dollar examples of IP grown from grassroots love, not top-down branding. This mindset is what APAC brands need to champion globally.
The Creator Economy? Been There.
Recently, platforms like Meta and YouTube launched “new” creator tools like Creator Marketplace and BrandConnect. But Douyin’s Xingtu platform and RedNote’s Pugongying have been providing smarter brand-creator matchmaking tools for years now.
These tools have enabled flexible and scalable creator campaigns for brands in China, from the ascendant Chinese hotel chain Atour to international juggernaut Lululemon.
What Cannes called innovation in the creator space felt like déjà vu to those of us in Asia.
In fact, RedNote’s proprietary “KFS” (KOL – Feeds – Search) marketing model, which launched years ago, has creators – or KOLs as they’re called in China – baked in as a crucial part of brand marketing on the platform.
What Cannes called innovation in the creator space felt like déjà vu to those of us in Asia. The West is playing catch-up—and it’s time we let that be known.
Now’s the Time to Grow our Influence
It’s not just the recent innovations to come out of Asia that are worth mentioning, too. Creative excellence has existed here for much longer. From the iconic 2016 Timberland commercial that gave birth to the endearingly punny Chinese nickname for the brand “TiBuLan”.
And then there is the 2018 Nike React Run the World stunt that had people looking up to see a person running on top of a giant 50-meter globe. China (and Asia) has no dearth of creative and insightful storytelling born from local talent.
But they rarely get the recognition they deserve on the global stage. Now’s the time to change that.
Next year, I’m organizing an APAC delegation to Cannes—to help regional brands and marketers show up strategically and tell their story right. If we want a seat at the table, we have to walk into the room.
Let’s make sure Asia isn’t just watching next year. Let’s lead.
Daniel is the Founder & CEO of MDS Collective.
Featured image via Cannes Lions.
