Know and be known: The navigation of taboos in Asia through creativity

BLKJ Havas’ Skanda Lokeshwaran explains how campaigns can tackle taboos in more conservative Asian society by exploring the context around sensitive social subjects.

A taboo can be loosely defined as a subject, word or action that is avoided for social reasons. However, social norms may be skewed towards certain biases and not reflect the true nature of ideas and concepts. That is why we, whether as individual creatives or as organisations, need to explore the context around taboos in relation to existing frameworks and attempt to distil the most effective and nuanced way forward.

This is especially relevant here in Asia, where society tends to veer towards conservatism in public discussions and restraint is prioritised when approaching subjects that might be out of...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands