As part of our Inside the Jury Room series, we interviewed Zeeshan Muhammad Khan, Head of Marketing for LEGOLAND Malaysia Resort, to hear their perspective as a judge this year for the Festival of Media APAC Awards 2026.
In the interview Zeeshan takes a deep dive into how the role of media has evolved in shaping consumer behaviour in recent years and what excites them most about the Festival of Media APAC Award entries this year.
What do you see as the biggest opportunity for media in the Asia Pacific region over the next 12 months?
The biggest opportunity is closing the gap between attention and action — using media to drive real, measurable behaviour, not just reach.
In APAC’s mix of mature and fast-growth markets, the winners will be brands that build media systems that do three things well:
- Design for intent and momentum: seamlessly moving people from discovery to repeat.
- Use first-party data with permission and purpose: personalising through clear value exchanges, not creepiness.
- Make commerce media work harder: especially as travel, leisure, and FMCG increasingly live inside marketplaces, super-apps, and aggregators.
How has the role of media evolved in shaping consumer behaviour in recent years?
Media has evolved from a megaphone into the place where behaviour happens. It now shapes what people notice, who they trust, and how easily they act — often in the same moment.
The real shift isn’t more media weight, but better creative in the right context, designed for how people decide: fast, social, and friction-light. That’s why I don’t see media as distribution anymore — it’s the engine room of growth, or the absence of it.
How are brands leveraging AI in smarter ways to create more impactful campaigns?
The smartest brands aren’t using AI to make more stuff — they’re using it to make better decisions. AI is at its best when it surfaces real human tension, sharpens intent in the moment, and accelerates learning without guessing.
If AI makes the work feel generic, it’s failed. Its job isn’t speed — it’s making campaigns feel more human, with more precision.
Which campaigns or brands do you think have set new benchmarks recently in the APAC media industry?
I won’t mention brands here. What matters to me is how the work makes me feel as both a human and a marketer.
The work that stays with me is disciplined, insight-led, and honest about what it’s trying to change — where media is essential to the idea, not just the delivery, and where behaviour genuinely shifts as a result.
What excites you most about this year’s Festival of Media APAC Awards entries?
This is my first time judging the Festival of Media APAC Awards, which is exciting. I’m looking forward to seeing work that reflects the reality of marketing today — clear trade-offs, real pressure, and ideas that have to work in the real world.
I’m drawn to entries that show sharp thinking, focused execution, and honest reflection, not just polished storytelling. And in a region as diverse as APAC, the work that stands out to me feels culturally fluent, locally intelligent, and operationally real — not built from a global template.
What advice would you give to entrants who want to impress the jury this year?
If you want to impress the jury, focus less on how impressive the work looks and more on what it changed. The strongest entries are clear in their thinking, honest about their decisions, and rigorous in how they prove impact.
- Start with a real business problem and a clear human insight — not vague objectives like “awareness.”
- Articulate the strategy in one sentence; if it takes longer, it probably wasn’t clear enough.
- Prove incrementality, not just results — show what changed because of the work.
- Make creative central to the idea, designed for the channel context rather than added as decoration.
- Be honest about constraints and trade-offs; real-world decisions matter more than perfection.
In the end, the best entries answer one simple question: what changed, by how much, for whom, and how do you know?
