More than 500 participants gathered today at the Juan Antonio Samaranch Olympic Hall Zetra for the 14th Branding Conference, which brought leading global and regional names from the creative industry to Sarajevo and once again confirmed the importance of this event for the development of branding, marketing and communications in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region.
Organized by the agency Via Media, this year’s conference, held under the motto Brand New Control, opened up one of the key questions of contemporary communication: who controls the story and the audience’s attention today, in an era of artificial intelligence, algorithms and accelerated cultural change?
“We launched the Branding Conference 14 years ago because we wanted Sarajevo to be a meeting place for relevant global and regional names from the world of branding and communications. Today, after so many years, it is particularly important to us that the conference has become part of the life of our creative scene and that every year it brings together people who want to hear something new, exchange experiences and open important conversations. We are proud of what the Branding Conference has become and of the place it holds today in our city and among the people working in this profession,” said Amna Džambić Branković, CEO of Via Media.
This year’s programme brought together prominent names from the global and regional creative industry, who spoke from different perspectives about the future of brands, creativity, attention, technology and culture.
Sean Poropat, co-founder of Studio Sonda, spoke about the value of unexpected creative decisions in his lecture Creativity: A Glitch in the Algorithm. David JP Phillips, a global communications expert, focused on the psychology of attention and the question of who controls the story today. Radim Malinic, founder of Brand Nu studio, spoke about creating brands that build long-term value, while Fran Mubrin of Agency 404 and Butool Rizvi of The Coca-Cola Company opened up questions about the relationship between technology, people and culture in contemporary communication.
A special part of the conference was dedicated to young talent. During the official programme, the winners of the Young Lions BiH 2026 competition, Anisa Omeragić-Šečić and Amar Rahić, were announced. They have already represented the Bosnian and Herzegovinian creative scene at the global level and demonstrated the potential of a new generation of local creatives.
The 14th edition of the Branding Conference once again connected the local, regional and global creative scenes, bringing to Sarajevo ideas, experiences and perspectives that open up space for new ways of thinking about brands, creativity and communication.
