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Source: Campaign Asia

From the historic sounds of Korea’s Liberation Day to improving women’s hearing through hijab, to a new mayor’s hope, top APAC creatives highlight the work that inspired them this year.

Throughout the year, you’ve already heard what AdNut and the Campaign team has had to say about creative work from Asia-Pacific in 2025. But what do creatives in the industry think?

Campaign Asia asked creatives from agencies across markets, categories, and cultures to handpick a standout work. In the end, the seven who provided selections gave us a divergent collection. Some gave their own agencies a pat on the back, selecting their own works. Others chose work from competing agencies while yet others went beyond consumer brands and advertising to identify bodies of work that resonated. What they all had in common, though, is that they champion courage, cultural insight, and human truth:

Huawei’s Runaway Journey features no product placement or ecommerce push, just captures the emotional turbulence of Gen Z with empathy and courage.

Sunday Gravy’s Reserved for Good Mates is not more than just an ad but a love letter to friendship, wrapped in a Coopers Original Pale Ale.

By reframing a used-car exporter as a catalyst for life’s next chapter, the SBT Global Campaign travels from Kenya to Mongolia to Tokyo, showing mobility not as a commodity but as a force for human progress.

Binggrae’s Unheard Liberation uses AI to reconstruct the lost sounds of Korea’s 1945 Liberation Day, bridging generational gaps and turning history into something you can feel in your heart.

MITH’s The Scent That Gives You The Scene from Thailand blends cinematic crafts with meta humour and genuine inclusivity.

Hear in Hijab redesigns hearing-aid technology for women who wear the hijab in Indonesia, extending Wardah’s care from covered hair to covered hearing.

Kraft Heinz puts its iconic Ketchup and Mustard into a playful crossover with Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine, turning the condiments into “once you see it, you can’t unsee it” humour.

With over 100 YouTubers and KOLs promoting the campaign and generating 50 million impressions, the Awakening Foundation’s Unfreeze My Rights campaign became a catalyst for change in women’s reproductive autonomy.

Last but not least, Third Domingo from Hakuhodo International selected a work with a completely different angle: Zohran Mamdani’s ‘This City Belongs to You’ campaign, which is not a traditional ad. This work reminds the industry that, after all, advertising is about “designing value for the consumers as humans”.

APAC creatives’ top picks

Campaign name: Runaway Journey
Brand: Huawei
Agency: Tian Yu Kong
Recommended by: Ben Sun, CEO, Havas Creative China

　

Huawei Nova’s ‘Runaway Journey‘ throws viewers onto an out-of-control graduation bus — a perfect metaphor for the chaos, uncertainty, and courage of China’s 2025 graduates. Job rejections, exams, imagined futures — all collide in a whirlwind that feels messy, real, and deeply relatable.
Traffic rules? No. Perfect production? No. Team consensus? No. Public opinion? No. Product features? No. E-commerce push? No. But Gen Z? Yes.
In a sea of polished, predictable campaigns, this ad proves that insight, empathy, and courage speak louder than convention.

Campaign name: Reserved for Good Mates
Brand: Coopers Original Pale Ale
Agency: Sunday Gravy
Recommended by: Francois Claverie, executive creative director, UltraSuperNew

　

Granted, I’ve a soft spot for Aussie humor, and I may or may not suffer from some of the ailments mentioned in this film… But I love this piece of work from indie agency Sunday Gravy because it feels incredibly refreshing: it’s hardly trying to be an ad; it manages to be cool without a trace of social trend; it makes scruffy middle-aged blokes look aspirational. And it’s also really well put together.

Campaign name: Unfreeze My Rights
Brand: Awakening Foundation
Agency: Dentsu Creative
Recommended by: Alice Chou, chief creative officer, Dentsu Taiwan

　

The power of this work lies in how it exposes truth through absurdity. A fake proposal revealed a real law — turning a woman’s private struggle into a collective awakening. It shows that personal rights are not just a women’s issue, but a test of our shared conscience. And when the system fails to speak, creativity can speak for the people.

Campaign name: Drive What’s Next, SBT Global Campaign
Brand: SBT
Agency: Droga5
Recommended by: Hirokazu Handa, group strategy director, Droga5 Tokyo, part of Accenture Song

　

SBT has long exported Japanese cars worldwide, but this project redefined its role: not just selling used vehicles, but helping people embrace life’s turning points and accelerate their next challenge. Through the new tagline ‘Drive What’s Next’ we positioned SBT as a brand that supports people in taking on new challenges. By visiting real users in Kenya, Mongolia, and Tokyo, we showed how a car can transform lives, becoming a tool for opportunity rather than just transportation. This branding work highlights SBT’s deeper purpose and inspires both customers and employees to see mobility as a driver of change.

Campaign name: This City Belongs to You
Brand: Zohran Mamdani for NYC
Recommended by: Third Domingo, APAC chief creative officer, Hakuhodo International

　

It’s not one particular ad per se. We live in a world where communication is an ecosystem, not a checklist of materials published or aired. In fact, I’d say that making ads is the worst way to do advertising these days. Zohran Mamdani is a person but also a brand. Now he’s the Mayor of NYC. In a world of fakes, he feels like the most real thing the best version of ourselves can relate to. He’s compelling for sure, but more importantly, he’s inspiring to voters–and voters aren’t just consumers, they’re humans.
This is the very thing we are trying to champion in Hakuhodo: designing value for the consumers as humans. Sei-katsu-sha value design.
Surely there is more complexity and media savvy to the comms campaign of Zohran. But the honest-to-goodness return to basics, of knowing the market (being the market) and the process of he himself knowing this market deeply (Zohran’s street interviews) is a genuine breath of fresh air. Lastly–and this is something that is rarely said about advertising these days–Zohran’s advertising is important. It matters to the world. And that’s what matters.

Campaign name: Unheard Liberation
Brand: Binggrae
Agency: Innocean
Recommended by: Nari Moon, creative director, Innocean

　

Our goal with Unheard Liberation was to let people experience Korea’s Liberation Day not as a distant chapter in a textbook, but as an emotional moment they could truly feel. Although countless photos and records from 1945 remain, the sound of liberation—the roar of relief, hope, and unity—was never properly preserved. Working with descendants of independence activists, historians, and archival research, we used AI technology to faithfully reconstruct the ‘cheers of that day’ and bring them back into today’s world. Through film, experiential pop-ups, and nationwide cinema screenings, we wanted audiences to close their eyes and be transported into that pivotal moment in history—hearing liberation for the first time.
Liberation Day is the most significant date in modern Korean history, marking the moment Korea regained its sovereignty after decades of Japanese colonial rule. While black-and-white photographs and written records from August 15, 1945 still exist, there is no preserved audio of the “roar of joy” that was said to be so powerful it shook the ground.
To commemorate the 80th anniversary of liberation—and to help younger generations reconnect with history—INNOCEAN, Binggrae, and the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs created Unheard Liberation, an AI-powered sound restoration campaign. Based on testimonies from descendants of independence activists, collected photographs and archival documents, and guidance from historians, the campaign historically reconstructed the soundscape of that day and brought it back using AI technology.
The restored audio was presented in the most immersive way possible through theatrical screenings, as well as special listening exhibitions in two history museums. Across these various touchpoints, the goal was for audiences to close their eyes and be transported to that historic moment—hearing the sound of liberation for the very first time.

Campaign name: The Scent That Gives You The Scene
Brand: MITH
Agency: Wolf BKK
Recommended by: Wang Ie Tjer, executive creative director, FCB Shout

　

While APAC has seen a lot of outstanding campaigns this year, MITH’s ‘The Scent That Gives You The Scene’ stands out for me because it turns what is essentially a perfume ad into a piece of cultural generosity. Instead of relying on a celebrity to embody confidence, it allows that confidence to belong to ordinary people. It’s a simple, disarming idea executed with cinematic finesse and unforgettable, meta humour. In an era where brands talk endlessly about inclusivity, MITH actually shows it, frame by frame, with heart, humility and creativity. Kudos to the team (including the clients!) behind the campaign, this is truly a piece of work that I wish I had done.

Campaign name: Hear in Hijab
Brand: Wardah Shampoo
Agency: Dentsu Creative
Recommended by: Defri Dwipaputra, chief creative + experience officer, Dentsu Creative Indonesia

　

Wardah Shampoo Hijab Expert: Hear in Hijab is a hearing-aid innovation designed for women who wear the hijab, addressing how layers of fabric can block traditional devices and reduce sound by up to 15 dB. In Indonesia, where 75% of Muslim women wear the hijab, this affects millions in daily conversations and safety moments. By placing the microphone outside the hijab and the processor inside, Hear in Hijab restores clearer, more confident hearing. Created with Wardah Beauty through its Wardah Hijab Shampoo line, the project extends their care from covered hair to covered hearing. Launched in Indonesia, it stands as a tribute to belief, dignity, and the team who made it possible.

Campaign name: Can’t Unsee It
Brand: Kraft Heinz
Agency: TBWA
Recommended by: Mo Chen, executive creative director, TBWA\Group China

　

Kraft Heinz Ketchup & Mustard teaming up with Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine for “Can’t Unsee It” is the simplest, brilliantly dumbest, and most entertaining idea I’ve seen this year. Looking ahead, any piece of creative content has the potential to go viral— as long as it lands at the right moment, on the right medium. It’s not about length. It’s about timing. Creativity shouldn’t be confined by format. In any era, it should be diverse, expressive, and bold. Great ideas will always shine.

End article

Read article at:
https://www.campaignasia.com/article/the-2025-wrap-work-that-captured-the-industrys-heart/506607