ARE WE ALL JUST CREATOR-MAXXING? 

The World Cup has never been more star-studded (covered in a previous Culture Wire), as Capital-F Famous People from across fandoms converge to celebrate one of the biggest global cultural events. So imagine the size of Unilever’s content creator Rolodex as the official personal care brand of this year’s World Cup announced it’s adopting a “Super Bowl every two days” marketing strategy. The brand has partnered with 50,000 creators worldwide across online and offline activations and campaigns, ranging from big-name athletes to micro-creators.

Once viewed as simple amplification channels for whatever direction agencies were hired to push, creators now seem to be center stage, with a seat at the table at the start of a brand’s creative funnel. Is this the dawn of a new era?

  OUR TAKE

Have we really arrived at Creator 2.0? Maybe the more interesting development is not that brands are just talking about creator-maxxing, but that heavy-hitters are investing in and scaling more diverse voices in communities and fundamentally retooling the marketing production process to bring creators to the drawing board. 

Unilever operationalized this with a Cannes Lion stamp of approval in the creative process for the 2025 Bronze Lion-winning Part of the Game with Arsenal Football Club.  The campaign message was completely overhauled based on the input of Arsenal Women’s athlete-creators, which speaks to the trust placed in the creators as the credibility sign-off. Unilever Global CMO Leandro Barreto stated that this new SOP, in which creators are recognized as voices of authenticity, double-team with agencies, and don’t just act as spellcheckers, required a shift in “relationships [and] control”. This might be an understatement, as the company now works with 30x more creators versus just two years ago, with a roster of 300,000 creators.

Brand-building has always meant partnering with different stakeholders: the classic celebrity spokesperson for clout, and a movie tentpole or IP for scale and to get the word out. As the new generation of YouTube talent gains name recognition and starts commanding dollars, these creators are now celebrities to which proximity is coveted (however mundane-seeming).

A big name doesn’t always equate to credibility, though. Celebrities and mega-influencers can be seen as Too Big To Trust. Brands are increasingly engaging with micro-creators and voices in micro-communities to build trust with consumers from the ground up. Nano-creators (1K-10K followers) in APAC are spotlighted for having higher engagement rates across platforms than macro-creators, with trust and authenticity cited as the top reasons consumers engage with creators in the first place. Visa even terms smaller creators as micro-SMBs, a fast-growing category in the USD 135.2B (2023) APAC creator economy. 

Sports brands are especially active in doing so by engaging with amateur and niche sports communities. Nike, in its battle against growth headwinds, is tapping into smaller-scale creators and communities to reposition itself and build influence. In fact, Nike and other previously entrenched multinational brands already face heightened competition in China, where key local brands are seen as more culturally connected and anti-generic. In South Korea, the popular Private Road Running Club positions itself as a community “for not only running but Korean culture across the board”, and brands must engage with it in ways that feel authentic and enrich people’s daily routines. As even these communities become more diverse, there’s growing demand for non-sports and non-performance-based brands to engage with these running groups in accessible ways.

The ways brands and creators work together are ever-evolving and increasingly corporatized, but one thing remains evergreen: how can one stay relevant and build in the culture? One marketing strategy doesn’t guarantee lasting cultural stickiness. Which communities has your brand been engaging with, and how are you crafting the brand story together?

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HEADLINE ACT

Filipino pop is having a festival moment. Weeks after BINI made history as the first Filipino act to perform at Coachella—and drew the kind of online attention that’s usually reserved for much higher-billed acts—SB19 are gearing up to perform at Lollapalooza. Novelty bookings these are not: BINI’s 2026 world tour includes stops in the US, Europe, and Asia, while SB19 reached 1B Spotify streams at the start of the year. 

BINI and SB19 are perhaps the highest-profile examples of a broader shift: across Southeast Asia, local-language artists, homegrown formats, and culturally specific stories are rapidly gaining ground. This isn’t one ‘wave’ replacing another, rather the emergence of multiple local scenes with increasingly engaged audiences. 

While previous SEA exports like NIKI and Rich Brian saw international success singing and rapping in English, these newer acts are finding global audiences while performing in their own languages. There’s still a place for global culture, but SEA consumers are becoming more confident that what’s made close to home belongs on the biggest stages.

OUR TAKE

Interest in local acts is intertwined with the evolution of K-pop. As the genre’s focus has shifted towards global audiences—think English-language releases, multinational line-ups and international training systems—it’s become both a global template and less of a geographically fixed category. But this has also allowed for the idol infrastructure to be adopted and remixed across SEA, as the all-Indonesian girl group NO:NA reveals. Although trained in an idol pipeline, they’re distinctly ‘local’, with gamelan, Balinese cymbals, and music videos set in rice terraces.

Meanwhile, the systems around these emerging local acts are also being built locally, through a mix of government funding, major-label investment, industry bodies, and international competition formats. Thailand’s Creative Economy Agency is in year three of Music Exchange, a program that’s seen 95 artists participate in 64 international festivals. In Vietnam, Sony Music took a 49% stake in YeaH1 Group’s music production unit to build a ‘direct pipeline’ for V-pop to reach international charts. And this November, Bangkok will host the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest Asia .

Of course, consumer interest in local acts predates export programs or investment, but now the scale is almost impossible to ignore. OPM’s share of Spotify’s Philippine daily Top 50 rose from 44% in 2023 to 63% in 2026 (note that we’ve been tracking this since budots crashed brat summer in 2024). Meanwhile in Thailand, daily music charts are a mix of K-pop and T-pop and Thai hip-hop, with Jeff Satur (the second most-streamed Thai act on Spotify globally) touring arenas across Asia and Latin America. Homegrown Malaysian acts like K-Clique are building a dedicated regional fanbase. And while Singapore remains an outlier, with K-pop, Western pop, and Mandopop still dominant, interest in local stories is surfacing in other formats.

Single x 35, a manga set in Singapore, recently went viral with fans praising the depiction of MRT commutes, bidding wars for in-demand apartments (brutal), and career stagnation. It sits alongside other webcomics like Woke Salaryman and Indonesia’s Tahilalats as an example of homegrown IP built on everyday anxieties and humor that—crucially—don’t need to be explained to the audience. Brands are starting to get it, too. Airbnb’s partnership with MILLI turned the Thai rapper into a cultural translator who guides travelers through Bangkok’s creative neighborhoods. Using an artist as an access point into a place and a culture works because MILLI’s credibility with that audience is earned.

For years, the safe bet for brands in SEA was to borrow cultural credibility from global acts. More recently, attention has shifted closer to home, but a partnership with BTS, BLACKPINK, or similar was still a bet on the biggest name in the room. Now, with local talent seeing chart success (at home and abroad), those ‘safe’ choices are starting to look less like the smart ones.

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 BRAND HOST WITH THE MOST

Everyone’s looking for a place to just be, and brands have taken notice. In the past few months, we’ve seen Coach open its first restaurant at Jewel Changi Airport, building on an NYC-inspired bar that had previously opened in Singapore. Porsche is also bringing hospitality to Jewel with a lifestyle-led concept store that includes Café Carrera, developed in partnership with Baker & Cook. Meanwhile, Recess and Aesop just unveiled a bathhouse in Montréal—complete with a communal sauna and hydrotherapy.

This isn’t exactly new territory. Ralph Lauren’s Ralph’s Coffee debuted in New York in 2014, and the first international MUJI cafe opened in Singapore in 2015. But the retail-hospitality crossover is accelerating, with brands betting that time spent is worth more than a transaction.

Is this soft-selling with a cocktail menu? Maybe. But the consumer pull is real: many people are looking for offline, collective experiences that give them a reason to meet others (and, ideally, put their phone away). Younger consumers in particular show interest in ‘shared room’ moments—2025 saw a 25% increase in cinema attendance among US Gen Z, while Gen Alpha increasingly say they prefer the big screen to watching at home .

OUR TAKE

Brands aren’t only competing for consumers’ wallets anymore; they’re competing for consumers’ time. That’s an important distinction; one that explains why the race to build third spaces is heating up. These are environments designed to sit between home and work, places where lingering—and not purchases—is encouraged. The metric that matters isn’t conversion. Instead, brands are measuring dwell time. How long do people stay? Do they come back… and do they bring their friends?

In fact, community is becoming more valuable than conversion. Nearly nine in 10 consumers say being part of a like-minded brand community strengthens their connection more than influencer marketing ever could. The same survey found that almost a third of consumers first discover a brand through community interactions rather than ads or feeds.

We’ve previously discussed how younger consumers in particular are tiring of dopamine-fueled microtrends, algorithmic spectacle, and constant novelty. That same exhaustion is pushing them toward brands that offer something slower: narrative depth and a sense of belonging.

Something else we’re noticing. Third spaces are increasingly being linked to adjacent interests, most notably health and wellbeing. Dior’s growing portfolio of branded spas extends the brand further into daily rituals, while New Balance’s Run Hub—which landed in Malaysia in November—blends retail with a gathering space for runners.

The brands that get this right won’t just earn visits. They’ll become part of how people structure their weeks. But it requires building a space people actually want to return to, not just another backdrop to scrolling.

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 SHOW & SELL

Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market is projected to hit $186 billion by 2025, and the current market leader Shopee just made a play to dominate the field even further.

By being the first brand to join Meta’s newest project, Facebook Affiliate Partnerships, they’re allowing creators to integrate their Shopee products on their Facebook Live, complete with a dashboard to manage everything from product curation to payment. Currently piloting in Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, it’s a bet that SEA’s livestream commerce market is just getting started.

OUR TAKE

This partnership arrives amid discussions about the future of the creator economy: can human influencers extend their reach through AI avatars? Can creators license their likeness? Interesting yes, but the more immediate issue for brands is how people actually buy. The online purchase journey isn’t linear anymore, it’s a combination of discovery, emotion, and repeated touchpoints shaped by creators and other customers — from traditional influencers (KOLs) to everyday consumers sharing opinions (KOCs) to the new breed of sellers going live from their bedrooms (KOSs)

Per Shopee data, in 2024, affiliates generated over 100 million pieces of Shopee Live and Shopee Video content (a threefold increase from 2023). Creator content now underpins everyday e-commerce, but it’s not all perceived as equal. In SEA, trust in mega-influencers (creators with 1M+ followers) is declining faster than trust in nano and micro influencers, highlighting the importance of authenticity. In parallel, 79% of SEA social media users are more likely to engage with creator content that ‘feels like a story rather than an ad’, and product links drive 31% of purchases, more than any other format. Taken together, the signal is clear: storytelling-led posts with soft-sell shopping cues from smaller creators are winning.

The Shopee x Meta tie-up will allow more Key Opinion Sellers — who are primarily focused on livestreams and short videos — to join the creator economy, attracted by the chance to boost their income. As they do, the volume of UGC developed by creators for brands will continue to grow, further accelerating the push towards invisible selling. Of course, that’s not just happening on Shopee. It’s also happening on TikTok Shop and Lazada.

For brands, UGC from smaller creators isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s essential. WARC’s Influencer Marketing Benchmark 2025 revealed that creator-led campaigns deliver 3.5x higher engagement rates than traditional paid media across Southeast Asia, while non-professional content investment is set to overtake institutional by 2026.

Consider what’s already happening. In Indonesia, over three-quarters (76%) of consumers buy from creator recommendations, particularly in fashion and beauty. Jakarta’s migration is slowing, partly because people can now earn from anywhere. A bedroom in Bandung is now as valuable as an office in the capital. When it comes to social shopping, the region has gone beyond proof-of-concept and entered the infrastructure-building phase. For local brands, this levels the playing field: you don’t need a marquee budget or celebrity endorsement when thousands of micro-creators can bring your product into daily life. The winners won’t be those who resist this shift toward invisible selling, but those who recognize that in SEA, commerce has always been social — but it’s now more scalable than ever.

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 STAYING ALIVE

“Create epic s–t.” This is Nike’s new battle cry and employee mandate, courtesy of Phil McCartney, the sportswear giant’s new Chief Innovation, Design, and Product Officer.

In the face of revenue decline, share price obliteration, and accusations of an innovation drought, Nike has taken former Adidas partner Ye’s (formerly known as Kanye West) hit song “Stronger” to heart: “Harder, better, faster, stronger.” This includes a C-suite overhaul and internal reshuffling of more than 8,000 employees, product launches brought forward by 12 months, moonshot projects (remember when tech companies did those?), and robotics-forward footwear like Project Amplify.

OUR TAKE

In the attention economy, it’s more complicated than ever for brands to stay relevant and compete for thinning wallets. Nike now has to fend off classic rival Adidas (whose strategy is to be even “more American” than Nike) alongside rising challengers like On and Hoka.

With new product innovation, brands must consider relevance to their target demographics. In the age of woke keyboard warriors and pilates princesses, we’re seeing a strategic shift as brands aim squarely at Gen Z and their robust, multi-hypenate lifestyles. Starbucks, for example, now lets customers add protein to almost any beverage, tapping into health and wellness trends. Gym brand Amino has rebranded itself as a “super-boutique,” combining classes, retail, F&B, and coworking spaces to give Gen Z a new kind of hybrid experience, as every location is now a destination and a lifestyle.

Marketing playbooks continue to evolve as brands turn to culture in search of the consumer sweet spot. Hobbies once seen as niche—like writing and collecting—now command scale and dollars. In China, bubble tea brand Mixue harnessed the power of juicy plotlines by printing fanfiction about its mascot, Snow King, on customer receipts. Other beverage brands are tapping into microdrama tropes like “CEO romances” or inviting fans to write their own endings through social media activations.

Experimentation with IP and collaborations has become a marketing staple, with cross-cultural partnerships helping brands amplify their message and move fast. South Korean entertainment giant HYBE recently partnered with the Los Angeles Football Club (new home of South Korean soccer star Son Heung-min), starting with sponsorship of the Audi 2025 Major League Soccer Cup Playoff and K-pop activations during games.

From sports to arts, brands are also getting their feet wet in controversial cultural moments that shape public opinion. One great example is the Louvre robbery, which dominated the public consciousness—sparking pro-heist sentiment and appreciation for the well-dressed “detectives” on the scene (who, caveat, were probably neither detectives nor AI-generated). The company behind the freight lift allegedly used by the thieves launched a tongue-in-cheek campaign in response, which drew mixed reactions. Netflix subtly joined the conversation, heroing heist-related content and quietly tweaking its algorithm to push anime like Lupin and Detective Conan all over your homepage.

And since everyone now has fine jewelry on their minds, when better for Tiffany & Co. to collaborate with Netflix on Frankenstein? The partnership includes a reskin of Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue flagship store and a London exhibit dedicated to the lore and craftsmanship behind both the jewelry and the original novel.

With this growing appetite for cultural experiences, brands are seeking out new touchpoints and moments to connect with shoppers. Whether you’re a legacy brand or new to the game, you need to be firmly embedded in culture to tell your story.

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 LOST IN TRENDJACKING

It’s official: Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, The Life of A Showgirl, is breaking records, clocking up more than 1.5 B global streams. Fans have made the album their own, with eldest daughters rewriting the lyrics to Eldest Daughter, the Ophelia dance challenge spreading across TikTok (no surprise that it’s currently one of the most popular tracks on the platform), and fan-produced parties popping up in Manila.

Everything from the announcement to the Target tie-up, time-limited theatrical release, and NYC Spotify pop-up came rendered in the album’s signature orange and was designed to create curiosity and encourage repeat fan participation. Taylor Swift continues to run a marketing masterclass, but there’s still plenty for brands to learn.

OUR TAKE

The truth for most brands that hopped onto the TS trendjacking machine is that, despite breaking streaming records, not everyone is feeling the Showgirl era. The ‘tradwife’ aesthetics—sourdough bread, basketball courts, domestic bliss—haven’t landed well with some US fans. Others have mourned the ‘distinct lack of yearning,’ a big departure from the gut-punch bridges of early Swift. Meanwhile, SEA fans have been Googling lyrical context for some of the more American references (Elizabeth Taylor, redwood trees ).

Something many backlash-focused think-pieces overlook is that this isn’t new. The more aggressive and edgy sound of 2017’s Reputation? That also wasn’t initially well received. But the criticism feels louder this time—partly because Swift is now a star that can alter GDP, partly because online discourse is faster, and everyone is so punk on the internet. Yes, some of the critiques about lyrical quality and multiple album versions feel valid. And yet… the album still dominates.

Anticipating that success, brand responses rolled out ahead of the album artwork reveal. Following Swift’s announcement of The Life of a Showgirl on the New Heights podcast, posts began flooding timelines, with brands leaning into the orange branding or placing products on the forthcoming album cover—all eager to catch the Swift wave. The more creative and authentic posts landed—see Dunkin’s “always been in our orange era” (it is the brand’s signature color) and the playful Life of a Canva Girl meme. KitchenAid’s Tangerine Twinkle mixer was another fun activation. Most others, though, were formulaic and forgettable .

Trendjacking an unreleased album buys entry into the conversation, but it doesn’t give fans a reason to participate—and that’s something they (especially Taylor Nation, a fandom born and trained to decode Easter eggs album after album) are keen to do.

For SEA marketers watching this unfold, the lesson isn’t about avoiding trendjacking altogether—but about not getting lost in it. Cultural proximity without cultural understanding has diminishing returns. Instead of defaulting to reflexive “X era” content, consider what Swift’s fans actually care about, and play within their hotspots. Her SEA fanbase—including the Philippines, her second-biggest market after the US—skews young and female. They’re interested in relationships, beauty, and travel.

Coffee brands shouldn’t stop at Showgirl era latte art, they should, in the same breath, create dedicated spaces for fans to meet and decode the album. Beauty brands could tap into the album’s old Hollywood glamor references, teaching SEA fans about Elizabeth Taylor’s iconic looks. The smartest move might be to wait—not to be late, but to be right. In the case of Swift, her storytelling will always provide the blueprint. It’s up to marketers to actually read it.

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LOW-RISE, HIGH RETURNS

Generating 20 million views in the first three days of launch, Gap’s Better in Denim campaign stars global girl group Katseye. It shows the six members dancing to the 2003 hit Milkshake from Kelis, while showcasing the brand’s low-rise denim (sorry Millennials, Gen Z is loving the low-rise).

On an earnings call, Gap Inc. CEO Richard Dickson said that early reads on the campaign indicate ‘this is [within] striking range of probably being one of the most iconic brand campaigns that we’ve done’. While the spot isn’t a major departure from previous campaigns (which feature Daft Punk and Juliette Lewis and Madonna and Missy Elliott among others), it’s creating significant cultural buzz around the brand.

OUR TAKE

In the last few weeks, American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeney Great Jeans campaign divided audiences, Swatch sparked racism accusations in China and Sanex was banned in the UK for suggesting Black skin is ‘problematic.’ For these brands, any attention is good attention. But Gap’s success shows that genuine cultural relevance can trump controversy.

And cultural relevance is something that Katseye has in abundance. The group – who represent everywhere from the Philippines to Ghana, Venezuela to Korea – embody diversity. Katseye’s Lara (who has Tamil-Sri Lankan heritage) responded to a viral post commenting on the importance and normalization of representation, saying that ‘It’s my #1 MISSION to make sure brown girls growing up and the entire south Asian community feels uplifted and powerful and confident’.

The campaign was always going to appeal to EYEKONs who’ve been invested since Pop Star Academy. But idol endorsement doesn’t automatically ensure a brand will appeal to the fandom. Fans are getting vocal and pushing back against brand partnerships, particularly when brands don’t align with broader values. When BTS’ V revealed he was Coca-Cola Korea’s latest brand ambassador, some highlighted the beverage giant’s inclusion in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions list – a movement calling for the boycott of companies involved in the violation of Palestinian rights. As fandom loyalty evolves to include values-checking, brands must prove they deserve the co-sign.

Finally, there’s the nostalgia factor. We’ve been tracking nostalgia’s resurgence for a while, but as the world becomes more chaotic, the yearning for a simpler time grows more urgent. From the Kelis track to the low-rise jeans and styling, Better in Denim is Y2K coded. But Gap didn’t just throw on rose-tinted glasses – pairing Y2K aesthetics with Katseye, a group that represents the future of global pop, makes ‘now’ feel as good as ‘then’.

Here’s a question for you to ponder: when everyone’s chasing viral controversy, what does genuine cultural relevance look like for your brand?

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MOODBOARDING MANHOOD

Forget everything you knew about Pinterest. The platform long associated with weddings, recipes and cottagecore is now going full throttle on men.

For the first time, Pinterest has released a men-only trend report, spotlighting how male users (especially Gen Z) are showing up on the platform. 1 in 3 Pinterest users are now men, and no–they’re not just saving sneaker boards. Top trending searches include “Pilates outfits”, “faded beard styles for men”, “rock climbers”, and “jorts outfit”. In fact, Pinterest just launched a dedicated Pinterest Man profile to house rising trends in men’s style, wellness, and lifestyle.

On the surface, it might look like Pinterest is just playing catch-up with a demographic they previously overlooked. But look closer, and this marks a deeper cultural inversion: a rewriting of gender-coded spaces.

OUR TAKE

Spaces once seen as inherently feminine (fashion, self-care, even moodboarding) are being reimagined for male audiences. It’s the reverse of what we’re used to: think soccer vs women’s soccer. Where masculinity was once the default, feminine-coded spaces are also becoming aspirational as men look for tools and community that can help shape their identity.

Asia has been quietly leading this shift for years, expanding the meaning of masculinity beyond stoicism and strength into something more layered: emotional fluency, aesthetic exploration, and cultural self-awareness.

•  Boys’ Love dramas broadened the emotional range of masculinity in media
• Japanese brand WOLG wants to normalise “masculine makeup” and challenge stereotypes
• Skincare brands like Etude House and Innisfree offer male-specific product lines that are widely embraced by Gen Z
• American-Vietnamese designer Hung La’s label Lu’u Dan reclaims the Asian masculinity narrative, previously flattened by Western tropes

In recent years, young men have often been portrayed as “lost” through mental health stats, manosphere headlines, and a loneliness epidemic too vast to ignore. Pinterest’s move however offers a different narrative that aligns more closely with what is already unfolding in Asia. We’re not just looking at what men are into but rather what’s important to them: self-care, agency and a sense of self.

Much like their female counterparts rethinking femininity (hello brat summer, demure & mindful), we’re also seeing masculinity take on new, sometimes unexpected, cultural forms. From the popularity of aura farming to Minecraft’s box office chaos, led by Gen Alpha boys – male audiences are increasingly shaping and dominating cultural participation.

So what does this mean for brands? 

It’s time to ditch the old pink = feminine, tech = masculine rhetoric and expand your assumptions. If your brand speaks to “women,” ask yourself: what would it mean to open the door to others? And if you’re targeting men, ask: what are your assumptions about who they are and what needs to change?

Brands don’t need to solve masculinity but they can support the process. Whether it’s helping someone rewrite their own identity or giving others the tools to witness, support or even challenge that transformation with empathy – brands can either shape the space or make it safer for others to step into it.

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FORE THE CULTURE 

Something’s been catching our attention over the last few months: golf is having a cultural moment that goes way beyond the fairway. From Gap’s limited-edition collaboration with golf lifestyle brand Malbon Golf, to the launch of Stick starring Owen Wilson on AppleTV, to the PGA TOUR’s release of the Ultimate Golf Simulator on Roblox and Topgolf’s expansion into Jakarta – promoted with a virtual golf experience of its own – the sport is suddenly everywhere. 

At first glance, it looks like golf is just having its main character moment. But the real story is about what Gen Z is actually buying into…

In the US, golf’s reach is up 30% since 2016, according to the National Golf Foundation, with players getting younger and more diverse. The highest level of participation came from adults 18 to 34, while 28% were female and 25% were Black, Asian or Hispanic (the highest proportions ever recorded). The obvious read? Young people are looking for alcohol-free socializing or a new approach to self care. But that’s not the full story. 

Here’s what the numbers don’t say: for many young players, golf isn’t about birdies and bogeys. It’s about what the sport represents – exclusivity, old money and an aspirational lifestyle that’s mostly out of reach thanks to the threat of a recession (among other factors). For a demographic all too familiar with uncertainty, coded status pursuits like golf allow participants to emulate a lifestyle that’s beyond their means. It’s something  Vogue Business refers to as ‘lifestyle creep’.

This aspirational cosplay extends beyond the golf course. It’s the sentiment that’s driving a resurgence of interest in everything from boat shoes to knitted polo shirts . You can draw a direct line between #OldMoney, which first started trending on TikTok in 2024 and now has more than 2.2 M posts on Instagram, and newer movements like the boom boom aesthetic and 80s cosplay. Affording this flashy, gilded lifestyle is another story entirely. Enter resale: earlier this year, eBay reported that Louis Vuitton topped the platform’s most wanted list. Aspiration always finds a way. 

What seems to be playing out is a young generation that is fundamentally reimagining aspiration and how they relate to it. Recent research found that 87% of global Gen Z consider financial independence important, but only 31% are excited about their future lives (in fact, 34% harbor deep fears about the future ). For a growing number, aspirational cosplay – whether that’s playing golf or donning 80s era power suits – is a form of emotional relief. A way to access something that seems further out of reach while simultaneously performing the symbols of that lifestyle.

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RUNNING RAGE

The Jakarta Running Festival recently took place from 12-13 October, attracting over 16,000 local and international participants. In July 2024, Media Indonesia reported that the number of runners in Indonesia has tripled.

Some 10 years ago, running became all the craze with corporations organizing a host of running events for charity, motivation and social engagement (who can forget the Standard Chartered Marathon, forever etched in the minds of Millennials and Gen Zs watching their dads train for the big race?) Back then, the running scene was dominated by more serious athletes – people who trained tirelessly to achieve a specific goal.

Fast forward a decade later, a new cohort of runners have emerged – casual runners. Running is now all the rage in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and beyond, inspiring a new wave of fitness enthusiasts and competitive running events that thrive off each other’s energy to drive the boom forward. While the running trend itself is part of a much larger, global fitness trend, that alone doesn’t explain its meteoric rise – especially in car-centric, polluted cities that lack the ideal infrastructure for daily runs. There’s something deeper fueling this movement. Let’s unpack that in more detail!

OUR TAKE 

Not my parents 

It’s common knowledge that Southeast Asia is home to some of the most common health problems – Malaysia leads ASEAN in obesity, Indonesia has the 6th highest number of diabetics worldwide. Diabetes is also the 6th leading cause of death among Filipinos (as of 2021, there are over 4.3M Filipinos suffering from diabetes).  

Like Gen Zs and Millennials in any part of the world, young Asians are determined to break away from unhealthy patterns. Where their parents might’ve been preoccupied navigating the economic recession and raising families, today’s youth are embracing fitness and wellness as a lifestyle. With more awareness of the health struggles they’ve seen their parents endure and a desire to avoid that, this motivation goes beyond aesthetics. 

A social sport
Much like the social nature of most Asian cultures, for many new runners, it’s a chance to be part of a community. Running clubs and online communities are growing in popularity across Southeast Asia: the 5AM Gang Run Club in the Philippines has seen a surge of new members over the last year and now has more than 26K followers on Facebook. As run club numbers tick up, so does the FOMO factor. When friends share activity stats or non-runners see running-related activities on their feed, they feel inspired to join in too. Running might not be a team sport, but the premise of working towards a common goal is increasingly making it a communal activity. Despite the lack of accessibility to runner-friendly routes, the socialising aspet makes the commute worth it. 

Easy access
Compared to the traditional gym culture – typically male dominated and often expensive – running can be both less intimidating and more affordable. The beauty of running lies in its simplicity. Just lace up your sneakers and go (and there are plenty of free running apps to help). 

And another point on those run clubs: many are free and emphasize inclusivity, with beginners and veterans welcome. PUMA Southeast Asia‘s recent campaign shines a light on ‘everyday’ runners—the ones who run not for records or medals, but for the joy of moving. Their message: you don’t need fancy gear or elite status to call yourself a runner. Clearly running is about more than status — community and feel-good participation are more important factors. 

Lockdown to life long 

The running boom can be traced back to COVID-19. With gyms closed, people turned to outdoor activities, and many haven’t looked back. Local running continues to mature – the recent HOKA Trilogy Run Asia saw 8,000 participants (pre-pandemic, the marathon averaged 4,000-5,000 runners) – and clubs catering to more specific interests are emerging. The Trailista Run Club is aimed at those interested in nature-led adventures. Even the recent cost-of-living crisis isn’t dampening enthusiasm, lending weight to the idea that road running really is recession proof.

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