Both business results and human good deserve equal recognition
Each year, the advertising industry pauses to ask itself what it values most — and MAD STARS 2026, convening in Busan this August, has structured that question into its very architecture. With 42 senior jurors drawn from 28 cities across four continents, the festival has split its highest honors between work that solves business problems and work that serves the broader human good, a division that reflects a reckoning the industry has long been circling. The June 15 entry deadline marks the moment when that philosophical framework meets the actual weight of creative work submitted from around the world.
- The clock is pressing: thousands of campaigns must be submitted before June 15, with no extensions, across 442 individual entry classifications spanning craft, data, and purpose-driven storytelling.
- A structural reorganization has split the festival's awards into two distinct moral registers — SOLUTION for business results, POSITIVE IMPACT for measurable change in the world — forcing entrants to declare what kind of value their work creates.
- Forty-two senior jurors from agencies, platforms, and brands — including Mastercard, TikTok, and AKQA — will carry the weight of evaluation across five specialized panels, with five Executive Jury members holding elevated influence in final rounds.
- Judging moves in stages from remote screening to in-person deliberation in Busan, where debate and defense will ultimately determine which work rises — and which fades.
- Two Grand Prix awards await at the summit on August 28, one for each group, signaling that business excellence and human responsibility are being granted equal standing at the industry's table.
MAD STARS, a fixture in Asia's creative calendar for nearly two decades, has confirmed its final judging panel for 2026: 42 senior professionals from 28 cities across four continents, operating within a broader global body of more than 350 industry figures. They are the visible face of a process designed to determine what excellence in contemporary marketing actually looks like.
This year, the festival has restructured that question into two frameworks. The SOLUTION Group honors campaigns that marry strategy with execution to move real business outcomes. The POSITIVE IMPACT Group recognizes creative work that generates measurable change — evaluated against sustainability, diversity, health, and civic responsibility. The split is not merely organizational; it reflects a genuine shift in how the industry has come to weigh what it makes.
The 42 jurors are organized into five specialized panels — Traditional, Experience, Entertainment, Strategy, and Digital — covering the festival's 25 award categories. Names like Raja Rajamannar from Mastercard, Anny Havercroft from TikTok, and Tara McKenty from AKQA anchor the roster, with five carrying the designation of Executive Jury member, signaling added influence in final deliberations.
Judging unfolds in stages: an online preliminary round, a remote first round of finals, and then an in-person convening in Busan for the decisive second round — where work is debated, defended, and ranked. The festival runs August 26 through 28 at SIGNIEL BUSAN under the theme AMPLIFY, with winners announced on the final day.
At the top sit two Grand Prix awards, one from each group — a structure that answers, at least for this moment, the industry's long-running question about whether creativity owes its highest obligation to business or to humanity. MAD STARS 2026 is betting the answer is both. The entry deadline is June 15. The jury is ready. The work must now arrive.
MAD STARS, the advertising festival that has anchored itself in Asia's creative calendar for nearly two decades, has locked in its final judging panel: 42 senior creatives drawn from 28 cities across four continents, all of them tasked with sorting through thousands of entries before the June 15 deadline closes. These jurors are the visible face of a much larger machinery—a global body of more than 350 industry professionals scattered across 83 locations, each one bringing their own lens to what constitutes excellence in contemporary marketing work.
The festival's organizers have restructured how they think about creative achievement this year, splitting the awards into two distinct frameworks. The SOLUTION Group recognizes campaigns that marry strategy with execution to solve actual business problems—the kind of work that moves the needle on sales, awareness, or market position. The POSITIVE IMPACT Group exists for something different: creative that generates measurable change in the world, evaluated against criteria like sustainability, diversity, health outcomes, and civic responsibility. It's a split that acknowledges a fundamental shift in how the industry itself has come to value what it makes.
The 42 finalists announced so far are organized into five specialized panels, each one aligned to a particular cluster of the festival's 25 award categories. There's a Traditional panel covering film, outdoor, print, and audio work. An Experience panel handling brand activations, direct marketing, commerce, and health communications. An Entertainment panel focused on branded content, music, gaming, sports, and design. A Strategy panel for integrated campaigns, media planning, data-driven work, and place branding. And a Digital panel for everything that lives online. The names read like a map of the industry's power centers: Sandipan Bhattacharyya from Monks, Raja Rajamannar from Mastercard, Anny Havercroft from TikTok, Tara McKenty from AKQA. Five of these jurors carry the title of Executive Jury member, a tier that signals they'll carry extra weight in the final rounds.
The judging itself unfolds in stages. Entries first pass through an online preliminary round, where screeners identify work worth advancing. Those selections move to a first round of final judging, also conducted remotely. Then the process moves to Busan, where the full jury convenes in person for the second and final rounds—the moment when discussion and debate actually shape the outcome. This is where the work gets voted on, defended, questioned, and ultimately ranked. The festival runs August 26 through 28 at SIGNIEL BUSAN under the theme AMPLIFY, and the winners will be announced on August 28.
At the top of the pyramid sit two Grand Prix awards, the festival's highest honors. One goes to the best work in the SOLUTION Group, one to the best in POSITIVE IMPACT. It's a structure that signals something the industry has been grappling with for years: the question of whether creativity's primary obligation is to business results or to broader human good. MAD STARS 2026 is answering that it's both, and that they deserve equal recognition.
For anyone thinking about entering, the clock is moving. The deadline is June 15, with no extensions offered. The festival is open across 25 award categories and 442 individual entry classifications, spanning everything from traditional craft to data science to purpose-driven storytelling. The jury is in place. The framework is set. What remains is for the work itself to arrive.
Notable Quotes
The restructuring acknowledges a fundamental shift in how the industry values what it makes—recognizing both business-driven work and purpose-driven creative as legitimate paths to excellence— MAD STARS 2026 framework
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why split the awards into two groups instead of just having one set of judging criteria?
Because the industry has split. Some of the best work being made is solving business problems—driving sales, building brands, changing behavior. Other work is solving human problems—addressing climate, building equity, improving health. Both matter. Both require different expertise to evaluate fairly. You can't judge a data-driven media strategy the same way you judge a campaign for gender equality.
So a campaign could win in both groups?
No, a single entry goes into one group or the other. But the structure says to the industry: we're not choosing between business and purpose. We're saying both are legitimate paths to excellence.
Why does it matter that the jurors come from 28 different cities?
Because advertising is global, but it's also deeply local. A juror from São Paulo sees problems and solutions differently than one from Tokyo or Dubai. When you have that diversity of perspective in the room, you're less likely to reward work that only resonates in one market or one cultural context.
What's the difference between the preliminary judging and the final rounds?
Preliminary is about volume—thousands of entries, mostly online, mostly elimination. Final judging is about depth. The work that survives gets seen by senior people who can actually defend their choices, debate them, explain why something matters. That's where the real evaluation happens.
Why does the festival move the final rounds to Busan in person?
Because you can't have a real conversation about creative work over a screen. You need to see it together, talk about it, push back on each other's instincts. The in-person rounds are where consensus gets built—or where someone makes a case that changes the room's mind.