Spikes Asia 2026 award-ceremony report

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Written by

仲橋祥子

Dir

山﨑末鈴

Des

What is Spikes Asia? 🏆

One of the leading awards in the advertising and creative industry of the Asia-Pacific region. It’s a region-specific award run by LIONS, the organizer of “Cannes Lions.” With many categories — not only advertising but digital, film, design, PR, craft, and more — it’s a place to get to know the current state of Asian creativity.

Ceremony overview

Event: Spikes Asia

Ceremony date: Thursday, March 12, 2026

Location: Singapore 🇸🇬

Venue: Capitol Theatre

Incidentally, the Spikes Asia trophy is apparently a “Spike” trophy — the name is said to come from an Asian hedgehog motif.
Designer Yamasaki carried the super-sharp, hefty trophy safely back home.

Off to the venue 🚶

We arrived in Singapore around 3:30 p.m. on March 12 and moved to a hotel near the venue. Since the ceremony venue was in the central downtown tourist area, the hotel and venue were a 5-minute walk apart (so close… the best!). We spotted the venue on the way to the hotel and could feel a lively mood from early afternoon.
At Spikes Asia, events apparently take place from before the ceremony every year. On the day itself, a standing buffet party started outside the venue around evening, and the area was bustling from early on.

The ceremony begins 🎊

mount won for “Hyakuyozu,” the Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores site we made together with everyone at NDC’s Misawa Lab. We took Silver in the Digital Craft category! 👏 Since only those chosen for Grand Prix and Gold take the stage, we enjoyed the ceremony from our seats.

We were also treated to lovely, ceremony-themed food.

At the venue, the winning works were announced category by category. Each time a Gold or Grand Prix work was introduced on screen, big cheers and applause broke out — it was hugely exciting. It was a wonderful party where you could feel the passion of everyone involved in the works.

What stood out among this year’s winners was the Indian creative agency “Leo.” With wins across multiple categories, wins for the company itself, an annual award, and more, their name was called again and again, and their presence was overwhelming. Leo’s members were incredibly energetic — their power was amazing.

After the ceremony we looked at Leo’s Instagram and researched their work, and it seems India’s advertising industry has been gaining global recognition in recent years. Indeed, every one of the works had a strong sense of India-ness, skillfully translating social issues and cultural backgrounds into creative.

We also met people from Japanese companies and production houses. At the venue we greeted many people — folks from Hakuhodo and its group companies CABIN and Gravity, someone our age from Dentsu, Saito of Tsumugu Brothers, and more.
(We learned then that the culture of politely exchanging business cards isn’t really a thing in many countries.)

At the ceremony, Japanese works were also highly praised, and when people from Hakuhodo and Dentsu won Gold or Grand Prix, even we — unrelated to those works — found ourselves rejoicing on our own.
(This is a personal impression, but) rather than confronting big social issues, Japanese works seemed to be recognized for pop, bright, yet meticulous and careful craft.
We felt we’d seen a wide, vast creative world different from the websites we usually look at.

Wrap-up and reflections 💭

山﨑

Because it was such a sudden flight, honestly I boarded the plane feeling somehow detached from reality. But the moment I arrived at the venue, that feeling was blown away, and I was overwhelmed by the creative-industry people gathered from around the world and the works unveiled one after another.
Seeing such diverse approaches to problems large and small — things that made me laugh in spite of myself, things that struck my heart, things steeped in their country’s character — I felt how small my own field of view was, and at the same time drew great energy from the sense that this wide world is connected to our daily production.
My thanks to the team who gladly sent me off as our representative, and to Nakahashi, who joined me on the ground!

仲橋

This Spikes Asia was a wonderful chance to interact with people and works we rarely get to meet. Seeing many works not confined to websites, I realized the website industry is only one small part of expression. There was something strange, too, about the fact that what we do so meticulously day to day was winning shoulder to shoulder with big advertising works of (surely) different budgets and scales.
I also felt anew that a website is something you have to think about a great deal — complex and delicate. Leaving an impact as advertising matters; the interactive, tool-like side of being usable by anyone in the world matters; and above all, it matters that what you want to convey gets across. It was a ceremony that reminded me we face, day after day, a very difficult medium that doesn’t close with just “a big poster” or “some fun single idea!”
It was my first time in Singapore, and I’m glad I could go with Yamasaki!

The backstory of getting to Singapore 🛫

This trip came together quite suddenly: the ceremony was on Thursday the 12th, but it was decided only on Wednesday night that Yamasaki and Nakahashi would go as the project’s representatives.
Once it was decided, on Wednesday night we rushed through booking flights and a hotel and preparing entry-related matters, and left home before the first train… It was quite the whirlwind. “So you really can pull off going abroad at this last minute, huh…” we said to each other.
As for the work scheduled for Thursday and Friday, everyone in the office kindly helped rearrange it for the following week. Thank you all so much.

A little extra

Since Im told us “if you’re going all that way, enjoy it,” we made time for sightseeing during our stay.
We got to see the famous Merlion and Marina Bay Sands. It was a short stay, but since it’s a compact city, we were able to fully enjoy the atmosphere of Singapore and its delicious food.

Behind the Scenes一覧