Ad Stars’ 10th festival kicks off today in Busan, Korea – winners announced this Sat, 26 August
The 10th Ad Stars festival kicks off today in Busan, Korea, where advertising professionals from around the world will experience the only international advertising awards show based in Asia.
Established in 2008, Ad Stars is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year after receiving the highest number of entries in its history – 21,530 entries from 56 countries, up from up from 18,063 entries last year.
The festival recruited 210 online judges from 62 countries who selected just 1,799 finalists from 40 countries in the preliminary judging stage. Almost 30 final judges (representing 20 countries) arrived in Busan on Monday to vote for this year’s Grand Prix, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Crystal winners, which will be unveiled at the Ad Stars Awards gala this Saturday night, 26th August.
A three-day program kicks off today, encompassing exhibitions, Creativity and Ad Tech 
conferences, networking parties, the Young Stars Ad competition for university students, and the New Stars Ad competition for junior creatives.
Says Eui-Ja Lee, co-chairperson, Ad Stars executive committee: “Our 10th anniversary is an important milestone for Ad Stars as the festival comes of age. We’re proud to say the number of entries 
has dramatically increased every year for the last 10 years, and we look forward to building on this growth over the next 10 years.”
Says Hwan-Jin Choi, chairperson, Ad Stars executive committee: “Ad Stars is a non-profit organization that highly values ‘Social Good’, unlike some other award shows that pursue profit. Based on the spirit of openness and sharing, there is no entry fee. Ad Stars is not only for creatives, but also for anyone who loves advertising. We celebrate diversity and strive to create a new paradigm as a festival that sits at the juncture of creativity and technology.”
Ad Stars has also partnered with AFAA (Asian Federation of Advertising Associations), and will host the AFAA Forum during this year’s festival. AFAA members will meet to discuss the future development strategy of the Asian advertising industry.
Today’s highlights include an Industry Keynote from Young Jay Paik, Google Korea. This will be followed by a panel discussion between Jonathan Lee, YDM Group; Shin Murakami, Yahoo Japan; and Yuxin Cao, Baidu Search Company in China. Val Link from SXSW will present with Minhwa Lee, from KCERN, followed by Kyoungjun Lee, Kyung Hee University and Dennis Hong, UCLA.
Meanwhile, the Korean Academy of OOH Advertising and the Korean Association of Advertising and Public Relations will conduct two ‘Academy’ workshops, with illuminating workshops also hosted by Hyunsuk Park, Facebook, and Youngmin Cho, Google.
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