Publicis Groupe Thailand CEO Sorada Sonprasit on what separates attention-grabbing work from brand building, and the rise of Southeast Asia’s creator economy

As Chief Executive Officer of Publicis Groupe Thailand and a juror across both Digital Craft and Social & Creator at Spikes Asia, Sorada Sonprasit saw two distinct but complementary standards emerge.

In Digital Craft, the strongest entries used technology — AI, real-time data, seamless interaction — not as ornament, but as the engine of a well-crafted experience. In Social & Creator, the bar shifted toward something harder to manufacture.

“Beyond craft and impact, the strongest work showed deep cultural relevance,” Sorada tells adobo Magazine. “It felt native to the platform, understood the rhythm of communities, and engaged creators in a way that was authentic.”

Jury for Social & Creator and Digital Craft categories

For her, one entry embodied this completely. Vaseline Verified by Ogilvy Singapore took home the Grand Prix in Social & Creator, part of a four-Grand-Prix sweep that also covered Creative Commerce, Healthcare, and PR. The campaign tested viral online Vaseline hacks in the brand’s own labs to separate fact from fiction, positioning it as a credible authority in the social media beauty ecosystem. “It didn’t feel like the brand was trying to interrupt or insert itself into culture,” Sorada notes. “It seamlessly became part of it.”

What she found equally compelling was how the execution held up to the insight, something rarer than it sounds. “What we often discussed in the jury room was how some work has a great insight but loses its strength in execution. This case did the opposite. It carried its insight all the way through with clarity, consistency, and strong craft.”

What the jury room revealed

Beyond individual entries, two broader shifts stood out to Sorada across the body of work she reviewed. The first was the rise of cultural relevance as a core driver of creativity, particularly in Social & Creator. The strongest ideas weren’t built around traditional big-campaign thinking but around a sharp understanding of how people behave, what they care about, and how conversations move in real time. The work felt more fluid, more participatory, and much closer to how audiences actually engage with brands today.

The second was AI’s evolution from novelty to embedded creative tool. The stronger entries used it to enhance craft, enable scale, or unlock new forms of storytelling, to the point where the technology itself became almost invisible. What mattered was the outcome, not what powered it. Together, these trends point to where creativity now lives: at the intersection of culture, technology, and execution.

Jury for Social & Creator and Digital Craft categories. Front row, left to right: Jennifer Tse | Social Media Director, Havas, Hong Kong SAR. Sorada Sonprasit | CEO, Publicis Groupe, Thailand. Back row, left to right: Jao Bautista | Executive Creative Director, Propel Manila, The Philippines. Rafael Imamniyazov | Creative Group Head, GForce Grey, Kazakhstan. Alan Leong | Content Solution Lead SEA, TikTok, South East Asia (recently moved to LinkedIn). Deepika Baghel | Senior Creative Director, Kinnect, India. Kazuki Tsuburaku | Managing Director and Executive Creative Director, Dentsu Digital, Japan. Jury President Barbara Humphries | Chief Creative Officer, Droga5 ANZ, part of Accenture Song, ANZ

This year, the newly renamed Social & Creator category introduced 12 new sub-categories, a structural shift that Sorada reads as an industry acknowledgment long in the making.

“Technology is no longer a support function, but a fundamental part of the creative process,” she said. For her, the expansion doesn’t signal disruption so much as formalisation: creative teams have been integrating technology into their work for years, and what Spikes Asia has done is codify the benchmarks and challenge the industry to redefine the standard of creativity in a tech-driven world.

Southeast Asia’s moment

Ask Sorada where the most exciting social and creator work comes from, and she doesn’t hesitate with her reply. The region’s creative edge isn’t incidental but structural. Asia-Pacific already accounts for over 70% of global social commerce revenue according to Grand View Research, and Southeast Asia’s social commerce market reached approximately USD $47 billion in 2025, with projections pointing toward $180 billion by 2030.

But the numbers only tell part of the story. “What makes the region truly unique is not just the size — it’s how people behave,” she explained. Social platforms here aren’t discovery tools; they are where the entire consumer journey unfolds. In markets like Indonesia, more than half of consumers already purchase directly through social platforms, with creators playing a significant role in influencing those decisions. Live streaming, short-form video, and creator collaborations function as direct sales channels, with social commerce accounting for 20% to 25% of total e-commerce in some markets.

The other edge is cultural complexity. Southeast Asia is a layered, fast-moving ecosystem of communities, behaviors, and conversations, and creators are its most fluent interpreters. “The strongest campaigns don’t try to impose a brand message onto culture,” Sorada says. “They allow creators to translate the brand in a way that reflects real cultural context, so the content feels less like advertising and more like participation.”

The long game

Perhaps the sharpest argument Sorada makes is about brand building. The persistent assumption is that social and creator work is inherently short-term: good for attention, not for equity. She pushes back on this directly.

“Many brands still use social and creators as one-off executions,” she argues. “Yet social and creator platforms are where we can continuously understand and define people’s evolving interests.” Used consistently and with strategic intent, social becomes a foundation for long-term brand meaning rather than a campaign tactic, a living expression of what a brand stands for.

The distinction she draws between engagement and brand equity is worth sitting with. “A lot of work can generate attention, views, or even virality. But if you remove the brand from the idea and the work still stands the same, then it’s not building the brand — it’s just creating engagement.” True brand equity is built when the brand is inseparable from the idea itself, with creators serving as the bridge, translating that core into communities, formats, and moments while the anchor holds.

Looking ahead, she sees the next wave of impactful social and creator work defined not by one big campaign, but by a strong idea that can travel across creators, platforms, and time while staying consistent with what the brand stands for.

“Creativity will remain the foundation,” she declares. “But it will need to work differently.”

adobo Magazine is an official media partner of Spikes Asia 2026.

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