The platform is the material for crafting digital work that actually connects, according to Meta’s Theresa Ong

The biggest mistake brands make when using social media is treating it like a billboard. They show up with a polished message, broadcast it, and wonder why people scroll past. Theresa Ong, Head of Creative Shop at Meta and Jury President for Digital & Digital Craft at ADFEST 2026, sees this constantly. And she’s watching it change.

“Platforms are no longer just a canvas to place an ad; they are the raw material we build with,” Ong tells adobo Magazine. This shift is fundamental. It equates to understanding not just what a platform does, but how it thinks, how its communities talk, and what its native language actually sounds like.

At ADFEST 2026, Theresa Ong was the Jury President of Digital & Digital Craft Lotus

Work that stood out at ADFEST reflected this understanding. It wasn’t about the technology being flashy. It was about technology being purposeful by serving a real human need or creating a genuine connection. 

“Where AI technology was used, it was used as an enabler, not the centerpiece,” Ong says. “These were the ideas that fostered genuine connection and community, moving people from being passive consumers to active participants.”

This distinction matters because the alternative is everywhere: reactive work that jumps on viral trends without asking if they fit the brand’s actual purpose, or uses new technology just because it’s new.

“The more reactive work tended to use new tech superficially, without a clear purpose.”

Broadcast to conversation

Across Southeast Asia and India, Ong has noticed a tangible shift in how brands are actually showing up. “We’re moving away from polished, top-down corporate narratives and towards more genuine, co-created stories,” she explains. “Brands are getting comfortable with the messy, lo-fi, unfiltered nature of social media, which is allowing them to connect with audiences in a far more relatable way.”

L-R (Yasuharu Sasaki, Julie Kang, Michael Ahmadzadeh, Theresa Ong)

This is a move from monologue to dialogue. It’s the difference between a brand talking to people and a brand talking with them. The best work created space for community voice instead of drowning it out.

Ogilvy Singapore’s Grande-winning campaign “Vaseline Verified” is a prime example. Rather than ignore the viral TikTok hacks people were doing with their product, the brand stepped in with genuine authority and empathy. Using TikTok’s native “stitch” feature, they tested and verified these hacks, adding real value to an existing conversation. It felt helpful, not promotional.

“It was smart, seamless, and proved that the best social campaigns don’t feel like advertising — they feel like a helpful part of the feed,” Ong notes.

Or BBDO Guerrero’s Mountain Dew “Play the Dew” campaign, which took something simple — the brand name — and turned it into a voice-activated gaming soundscape on TikTok. Mountain Dew didn’t just join gaming culture; it created a new way to play within it. The craft was in the playfulness, the innovation, the understanding that fun itself is a form of connection.

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Redefining digital craft

Digital craft used to mean beautiful design or polished pixels. Now, it means something more invisible but more powerful: the architecture underneath. How flawlessly you can weave complex systems together to create something that feels effortless and deeply human.

Leo Australia’s “Haven” for Suncorp is another great example. The platform takes massive amounts of data — live climate APIs, property information for 11 million homes — and transforms them into something personal and protective. Instead of terrifying homeowners with raw data, it gives them an actionable plan to protect their families. The technology here is sophisticated, but its purpose is simple: to make people feel safer.

“The best creatives will be those who can collaborate with AI, using it as a powerful tool to augment their own creativity, not replace it,” Ong says. This is where the real craft happens — not in what AI can generate, but in the human choices around which options matter, what stories get told, and how technology serves that story.

What separates excellence from everything else

When ADFEST judges looked for Gold-standard work, they weren’t looking for impressive metrics. They looked for five things: 

• Empathy: Did the work show a real understanding of its audience?
• Imagination: Did it use tech to create a genuinely new and inspiring experience? Connection: Did it bring people together?
• Cultural Resonance: Did it tap into a powerful local truth?
• Positive Impact: Did it leave a positive mark on culture or society?

“AI can generate endless options, but it can’t replicate human empathy, our intuition, or our lived experiences,” Ong says. As AI becomes more embedded in creative work, the gap between exceptional and automated will only widen. Exceptional craft becomes about human choices — the judgment calls, the cultural instinct, the lived experience that an algorithm simply cannot access.

Ong puts it simply: “AI will not replace craft — but it will reveal it.”

Theresa Ong, Head of Creative Shop at Meta

The future of digital work belongs to those who understand that platforms are built by humans, for humans. Technology amplifies what we choose to say, but it doesn’t choose for us. Community is now a creative partner. Empathy is a competitive advantage. And the most powerful digital ideas aren’t about technology at all — they’re about what technology allows us to do for each other.

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