Culture ministry opens Busan advertising festival focused on AI

The culture ministry said Wednesday that the 2026 Busan International Marketing & Advertising Festival will be held in Busan, exploring how artificial intelligence and human imagination are reshaping creativity in advertising.

The event will be held Aug. 26-28 at Signiel Busan and venues in Haeundae.

The festival has examined the changes AI has triggered in advertising and the industry's future for a third straight year since 2024.

Choi Seong-hee, the culture ministry's content industry policy director, said, "Advertising is the latest content in its own right, most sensitively reflecting contemporary cultural trends and combining human creativity with innovative technology." She said the ministry expected the industry to create new opportunities amid AI-led digital transformation and media diversification and would expand policy support to strengthen its global competitiveness.

The conference includes about 40 sessions on AI and human creativity, fandom culture and brand growth. Raja Rajamannar, Mastercard's former chief marketing and communications officer, and Tara McKenty, chief creative officer at AKQA, are set to deliver the Aug. 27 keynote addresses.

The opening ceremony will present an International Honorary Award to Rajamannar and an Achievement Award to Lim Ji-young, president of the Korea Advertising Film Producers Association. Two Grand Prix of the Year awards will be announced at the awards ceremony on Aug. 28. Finalists were selected from entries submitted over about four months from early February through online judging by 313 jurors from 83 countries. A 43-member jury from 28 countries conducted three rounds of judging to determine the winners.

The festival is also introducing a country spotlight program, selecting the Philippines as its first featured country. With Philippine media outlet adobo Magazine, it will mount the Galing Pilipinas exhibition on Philippine advertising campaigns from the 1980s to the present.

The New Stars and Young Stars finals began Aug. 25. New Stars includes 63 advertising professionals with up to five years of experience from nine countries, while Young Stars brings together 93 university students from 10 countries for 30 hours of competition. After the festival, a free Creative Pop-up at Domoheon from Sept. 10 to 13 will offer displays of major campaigns and talks by working professionals.