The What's NEXT in Marketing 2026 Conference Series is expanding to six Asia-Pacific markets, adding Thailand to its roster for the first time. The event will also return to the Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Malaysia, bringing a regional focus on the technologies and strategies reshaping how brands connect with consumers.
Organizers are promising a program built around practical, forward-looking marketing tactics. The conference has historically drawn brand strategists, creative directors, and digital leads from across the region. The 2026 edition signals a deliberate push into Southeast Asia's faster-growing digital economies, where social commerce and mobile-first behavior are rewriting the rules of engagement.
Thailand enters the mix
The decision to stage the conference in Thailand for the first time reflects the country's weight in the regional marketing conversation. Social media penetration sits above 70%, with platforms like Facebook and Line serving as primary channels for brand discovery and customer service. E-commerce in Thailand grew by roughly 30% year-on-year in 2025, making it a natural testing ground for the kind of creative commerce tactics the conference is known for.
For local creatives, the Thailand edition offers a chance to see how global campaign frameworks adapt to Thai consumer habits-think localized payment integrations, community-driven loyalty programs, and visual storytelling tuned for Line's ecosystem rather than Western platforms.
Themes creatives can expect
Past editions of What's NEXT in Marketing have emphasized hands-on workshops and case studies over abstract theory. The 2026 agenda, while still being finalized, is expected to drill into several areas that directly affect creative workflows.
Hyper-personalization at scale will be a major thread-using real-time data feeds to generate individualized creative assets without sacrificing brand consistency. The rise of retail media networks also promises to change how creative teams think about distribution, as brands shift budgets toward retailer-owned data ecosystems in the post-cookie landscape. And creative commerce, blending entertainment with transactional moments on platforms like TikTok and Shopee, will likely dominate discussions about format innovation.
Sustainability messaging is expected to appear not as a sidebar CSR topic, but as a core creative brief requirement. Brands are under pressure to prove their commitments through transparent supply chain storytelling and product-level carbon data, which demands a different kind of visual and narrative craft from creative teams.
What attendees get
The conference typically includes keynote sessions from CMOs and creative chiefs, live demos of AI-powered campaign tools, and an exhibition hall featuring martech vendors. For 2026, organizers have teased a "Future Trends Lab" where participants can interact with prototypes of next-generation campaign dashboards and AI creative assistants.
Networking breaks and post-event access to recorded sessions are standard. Early bird pricing and group rates for agency teams are usually available, though specific dates and venues have not yet been published. The organizers are directing interested attendees to the official event page for registration details and speaker announcements.
Why this matters for creatives
The tools and platforms that produce creative work are changing faster than most agency workflows can absorb. This conference series puts creatives in the same room as the people building those tools and the brands deploying them at scale. For a designer, copywriter, or creative director working in APAC markets, the practical takeaway is exposure to real campaign mechanics-not trend reports-across six distinct consumer cultures. Seeing how a retail media strategy performs in Jakarta versus Hong Kong, or how AI generative tools are briefed in Singapore versus Bangkok, provides a reference set that no single-market event can offer.
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