Speakers | DK

2026

Father of Modern AI: The Future of the Universe (Switzerland)

Back around 1990, a few irrelevant things happened. The Cold War ended, the World Wide Web was born at CERN, the first smartphones appeared, self-driving cars entered traffic — and modern AI based on very deep neural networks quietly took shape, including the core principles behind the G, P and T in ChatGPT. In this talk, Schmidhuber connects those breakthroughs to something much larger: the entire history of the universe since the Big Bang and the even larger future ahead. And what’s next, according to Schmidhuber, isn’t just AI behind screens. It’s real intelligence for real robots in the real world. This is the story of where AI came from — and the far bigger story of where it’s about to take us.

Jürgen Schmidhuber: Modern AI and the Future of the Universe

Silicon Valley's Most Sought-After Brand Strategists | First CMO for YouTube, Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, Discord &amp; more (San Francisco, USA)



Hall AAA | Saturday | 11:45 AM



She is as elite as it gets. Branding expert extraordinaire. And oh boy, where do we even start?



Before YouTube became YouTube, before Airbnb meant more than crashing on someone’s couch, before platforms like Discord, Dropbox or Reddit turned into cultural infrastructure, this extraordinary woman was their CMO and already doing their branding architecture of today: defining brand position, tone and go-to-market logic that actually matters. Many of those brands haven’t fundamentally changed since — which tells you everything about the strength of the foundations she sets, and why, in today’s branding renaissance, she remains one of the few branding experts founders turn to when clarity matters more than noise.



As the first Head of Marketing and Communications for YouTube, Julie Supan helped officially launch the platform in 2005 and shape its identity during its meteoric rise, all the way through its $1.6B acquisition by Google. And that was just the beginning. Her work never stops at logos or campaigns. She builds meaning, narrative and trust at scale, leading branding, communications, grassroots marketing, policy and cultural partnerships at a time when the internet itself is being invented in real time. The industry notices — Advertising Age and BrandWeek name her Marketer of the Year — but Supan keeps doing the work, not the victory laps.



And if you thought this was enough of a flex, think again. This year, branding once again moved to the centre of business strategy after years of performance-first thinking, and Supan is the one founders and CEOs call to elevate their brands when the stakes are high. Not all companies get to work with her though — Supan works with only a handful of companies per year, helping them find their branding position, define their audience and launch with confidence in brutally competitive spaces. A longtime guest lecturer at Stanford GSB and advisor to top VC firms, Julie Supan talks about branding as architecture as opposed to decoration — and at DK2026, she brings that elite branding logic behind the world’s biggest platforms to the stage in Rovinj.

Julie Supan

Elite Branding Expert for YouTube, Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, Discord: The Vision Advantage (San Francisco, USA)


When the world gets loud, the brands that last don’t get louder — they get clearer. And their vision speaks. At DK2026, Julie Supan takes us back to the moments before YouTube, Airbnb, Dropbox or Reddit brands became what they are today. In those early, uncertain moments — when the internet was still being invented and nothing was obvious — she shows how vision, backed by intention, shaped brands that would outlive trends, hype and noise. Through raw lessons from the front lines of building huge brands, Supan will reveal how clarity becomes direction, direction becomes momentum and why the strongest brands don’t chase attention, but quietly pull people toward a future they want to belong to. If you want to learn about long term branding architecture thinking from the woman behind some of the most valuable brands in the world, this is THE talk for you.

Julie Supan: The Vision Advantage of Branding

Father of Modern AI | Institute for Artificial Intelligence Research (Switzerland) &amp; KAUST (KSA)



Hall AAA | Saturday | 12:45 PM



The man who devised the basics of the P and T in ChatGPT, invented and taught AI to think, is coming to DK. Yes — you’ll get to meet the Father of Modern AI himself, Jürgen Schmidhuber. Yup, he also put the s, m, a, r and t in smart.



<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1727531938989129846" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Elon Musk</a> said "Schmidhuber invented everything", <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/27/technology/artificial-intelligence-pioneer-jurgen-schmidhuber-overlooked.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The New York Times</a> headlined that when AI finally matures, it may call Schmidhuber "Dad". Many others also quoted, interviewed, used and admired his work. Basically, there are very few people on this planet you can genuinely call pioneers — and Schmidhuber is one of them.



Prof. Jürgen Schmidhuber revolutionized machine learning and AI on an unthinkable level as his lab created two of the most cited AIs of the 20th and 21st centuries. Through Google Translate, Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Facebook etc., his AI is on over 3 billion smartphones worldwide, used billions of times daily and utilized in healthcare and medicine, helping to make human lives longer and healthier. Talk about real impact, huh? 



But he is no ordinary, let alone boring, scientist; if you watched him at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FIo6evmweo" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lex Fridman Podcast</a>, you already know he is a (far from mad) genius with just enough crazy and abstraction to really stretch your imagination to its absolute limits. He was the one who pioneered machines that learn to learn and neural AIs that set themselves their own goals. In other words, if you were ever afraid of the dystopian future in which AI wipes us all out — Schmidhuber is the one who made machines think.&nbsp;



Even when he was a young boy, he thought the most exciting thing was to solve the riddles of the universe. This is because Schmidhuber thinks — and talks — in cosmic scale. Listening to him, you get the sense he’s not predicting the future — he’s remembering it. And honestly? His visionary work found its way to your pocket, your desk and every device you use daily. So yeah, maybe you don’t get to meet the Father of Modern AI every day. But you will in May.

Jürgen Schmidhuber

Global Strategy Mentor: Strategy On You (New York, USA)

Oh, you thought this was going to be a typical strategy session? Cute. But no. Mark Pollard doesn’t do polite keynotes or neatly packaged frameworks. He builds sessions around people in real time and uses strategy the way it was always meant to be used: as a thinking tool, not a performance. At DK2026, the voice behind the Sweatheads podcast with over 1.3 million listens brings an interactive, high-energy session that turns strategy back on you. Not on brands. Not on case studies. On how you think, define problems and turn messy ideas into something that actually connects.

Mark Pollard: Strategy On You

Iconic Mentor to Millions: Unbland Yourself (Los Angeles, USA)

A century ago, people consumed 3 hours of media daily. Today, it’s closer to 13 hours. We are exposed to 4,000+ digital touchpoints and 100,000+ words of content. Every. Single. Day. Every brand is screaming for attention. Everything looks the same. Everyone sounds identical. But you know what? Vanilla won't go viral because in attention bankruptcy, only the real get remembered.&nbsp;



This is why, exclusively for DK2026, Chris Do introduces Unbland™ TalkShop — part talk, part workshop that’s fully interactive, and yes, the entire room is invited to play. The TalkShop will help you unleash your secret weapon —be more you, the you-est you you can be. This is a rare chance to define and build your brand — the right way, fully aligned with your beliefs and values. 



He’s taught millions, helped thousands, and changed the lives of hundreds.&nbsp;



Don’t let it go to waste.

Chris Do: Unbland Yourself™

Political Campaign Insider: Inside the Zohran for NYC Campaign (New York, USA)

Political campaigns move at a speed most brand teams would probably decline. Headlines are shifting every hour, national topics hijack local debates, journalists want answers NOW and eight million New Yorkers are ready to tell you how they could do it better. Dora Pekeč knows that environment well. She worked inside the communications team that helped drive one of the most talked-about political campaigns in the United States and now serves as Senior Spokesperson for the Office of the Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani. Dora will take you inside the mechanics of the famous NYC political campaign and provide insights into what the “rapid” in “rapid response” truly means under the microscope of the global stage — where every move could put you on the precipice of scandal. From fighting headlines to breaking through the mold of the traditional press ecosystem, Dora will reflect on what it means to build trust, balance the benefits and drawbacks of constant attention, and maintain authenticity for a political candidate.

Dora Pekeč: Inside The NYC Mayoral Campaign That Caught the Attention of the Globe

Architect of Consistency: Designing Truly Connected Brands (The Netherlands)

Customers treat their ecommerce journey much like a situationship. They scroll, they drift, they abandon their cart like an unanswered text and come back three days later acting like nothing happened. The path to purchase is nonlinear, emotional and honestly, kind of a mess (just like the best kind of chemistry). Most brands respond to this by getting louder, more desperate, more everything, which, as any seasoned flirt will tell you, is never the move. Nothing kills desire faster than showing up differently every time, so Daan Klaver builds brands that behave the way he wants them to. In this session, he will break down what a truly connected commerce actually means, why most brands are still organised around internal structures instead of actual human behaviour and how to build brand experience that has customers keep on coming. Again, and again and again.

Daan Klaver: Commerce, Designed to Connect

Global Authority in Digital Marketing | Forbes’ Top 10 Marketer | New York Times Bestselling Author | Co-founder of NP Digital, Performance Marketing Agency of the Year in the 2026 AdAge A-List (Los Angeles, USA)



Hall AAA | Friday| 11:35 AM



A Forbes Top 10 Marketer and New York Times bestselling author, Neil Patel is best known today for sharing data-driven insights with a global audience. His YouTube channel counts over 2.2 million subscribers, where he regularly breaks down digital marketing topics through charts, examples and practical analysis.



Neil’s current work with NP Digital, which has recently been named Performance Marketing Agency of the Year in the 2026 AdAge A-List, centres on interpreting&nbsp;data and translating it into clearer conclusions. He examines how digital channels evolve, how measurement shifts over time and where marketers tend to misread signals.



His sessions are built around&nbsp;insights and&nbsp;concrete&nbsp;takeaways, with an&nbsp;understandable perspective on digital marketing, supported by data and clear explanations of what’s happening now — and what to pay attention to next.

Neil Patel

Smart Copywriting from The Copy Posse: The Repel Method (Canada)

Have you ever read such a great subject line of a newsletter that there was no known universe where you didn’t click on it? Or saw an amazingly written headline that changed how you feel about a brand? Or maybe you were on the fence about buying those new shoes and then you saw a tagline so full of personality that turned your curiosity into a sale?&nbsp;



That’s the power of messaging. And Alex Cattoni built her reputation on words that convert. At DK, the copywriting goddess brings her REPEL Method — a system for building messaging that attracts true fans and filters out the rest. She’ll show you how to choose stronger verbs, cut filler out, claim a bold angle and make your value crystal clear. Through real examples of copy from major brands, you’ll break down what makes a promise believable, a hook irresistible and a message worth remembering. The only downside is that you’ll start spotting weak copy everywhere. It’s a blessing and a burden.

Alex Cattoni: The REPEL Method How To Craft An Unmistakable Brand Message

Audio Alchemist | Sonic Strategy Director for Studio Resonate (SiriusXM Media), (New York, USA)



Hall AAA | Friday| 10:30AM So… if you’ve ever wondered why Netflix’s "ta-dum" hits harder than your morning coffee, or why some brand jingles live rent-free in your head for years — meet Steve Keller, the guy who basically weaponises sound for a living (in the nicest, most award-winning way possible). He’s the Sonic Strategy Director at Studio Resonate, SiriusXM Media’s audio-first creative consultancy, shaping how brands show up across Pandora, SiriusXM, SoundCloud and the SiriusXM Podcast Network. In short: if a brand has a voice, Keller has probably told it how to use it.



Steve blends art and science like it’s nothing — with a Psychology degree, 35+ years in music and advertising, and a brain that clearly never clocks out. He studies how sound messes with perception and behaviour (spoiler: it absolutely does), from audio archetypes to the weird-but-real relationship between sound, taste and aroma. Yep, your ears might be influencing your taste buds. Cute. Terrifying. Both.



And because DK likes its brains with a side of spice, he also dives into the uncomfortable, so stuff like AI voices, the existence of audio archetypes, the cost and benefits of music, how bias impacts the aesthetic judgements of advertising professionals, the application of the behavioral, cognitive, and experimental sciences to the art of sonic branding, the relationship between voice, racial constructs and sonic racism and the way the industry makes "aesthetic judgement calls" that are… let’s say not always innocent. While listening to this audio alchemist, there’s always at least one moment where you’ll think: "Wait… have we been manipulated by sound this whole time?" Yes. Yes we have.

Steve Keller

Performance Marketing Agency of the Year: Content Isn't King (Los Angeles, USA)

You know the feeling: you publish more, post more, optimise more… and somehow the results don’t follow. The data looks fine — and then you open the report and realise the only thing growing consistently is the amount of content you’re producing. Neil Patel comes to Rovinj to do what he does best: give you a data-led reality check on how digital marketing actually works right now. You’ll learn how different formats influence behaviour, where marketers misread signals and how to audit your content engine using a system that works like a charm.

Neil Patel: Content Isn’t King: 30 Charts That’ll Change The Way You Do Marketing

Co-founder &amp; Creative Director of Built in Amsterdam (The Netherlands)



Hall AAA | Saturday | 10:45 AM Gen Z swipes left on most brands faster than a disappointing Tinder date. So R.I.P. to channel loyalty. We need to start living in the reality where if your brand falls apart from one touchpoint to the next, from one channel to another, customers won’t last long (good advice for, um, anything in life). And that’s exactly the playground Daan Klaver operates in. As the Co-founder and Creative Director of Build in Amsterdam, he leads the studio in building some of the sharpest, most self-assured brands and digital flagship experiences globally right now. Think global lifestyle brands, tech giants, cultural institutions, names like Adidas, Polaroid and Akris.&nbsp;



Daan is known for helping brands meet consumers wherever they are — regardless of platform. For him, your website is your only fully owned territory. Think of it like your bedroom. Everything else is just foreplay in someone else’s space. So we’ll be free to proclaim him the king of connected commerce. He’d probably just call it common sense, but the Dutch do have a reputation for being forward-thinking, precise and very direct, so no surprises there.&nbsp;



And then there’s his philosophy. For Klaver, design is seduction — the synthesis of observation, evolution and tension between different voices. The best brands understand rhythm, anticipation and timing: the art of building tension before delivering the moment everyone’s been waiting for (another, um, very useful life skill).



So yes, this straight-to-the-point Dutch guy will show you the blueprint for what a truly connected commerce actually means. But fair warning: side effects of his session may include increased heart rate, sudden brand clarity and a strong urge to strip down your entire brand experience, slowly, carefully, layer by layer.

Daan Klaver

Audio Alchemist: Sound Branding Amplified (New York, USA)

Audio is the growth lever most brands are still ignoring. In Sound Thinking: The Power of Audio. Amplified, Steve Keller turns up the volume on what sound can really do: shape perception, trigger emotion and build memory that actually sticks. This is a fast, TED-style session packed with his go-to playbook for going deeper into the psychology of sound, longer into brand equity, wider across every channel, and further than traditional audio ads ever dared. You’ll learn how to design sound like a system, not a soundtrack. You’ll rethink what a sonic logo is for, and why your brand voice matters more than your brand font. And yes — you’ll probably leave judging every brand you hear on the street. In a good way. Probably.

Steve Keller: Sound Thinking — The Power of Audio. Amplified.

Founder &amp; CEO of The Copy Posse | 2022 DigitalMarketer of the Year | #1 Most Popular Copywriter of 2023 (Canada)



Hall AAA | Friday | 3:15 PM Do you sometimes feel the Internet is… kinda sleazy? Yeah, same. Thanks, bro marketing. After years of aggressive funnels, fake urgency and “this offer disappears at midnight” energy, we had to call in someone whose entire mission is to clean it up. Meet Alex Cattoni, a copywriter, entrepreneur and the founder of the Copy Posse, a global community of over 500,000 marketers, creatives and business owners on a mission to de-douchify the Internet with more authentic, heart-centered messaging. Think less “BUY NOW OR DIE,” more “here’s why this actually matters.”



Cattoni’s career didn’t follow a neat corporate staircase. She traded law school for a one-way ticket to Malaysia to join a little-known startup called Mindvalley, where she rose to Creative Director and helped scale campaigns that tripled revenue. Then she stepped out on her own, spent years behind the scenes launching multi-million-dollar brands and eventually built Copy Posse into a business and a new standard for how online marketing can feel. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Mindvalley and Foundr, DigitalMarketer named her Marketer of the Year and even the Internet named her its favourite copywriter in 2023.



Today, Alex Cattoni is one of the most sought-after voices in modern marketing. With over a quarter of a million YouTube subscribers and students in more than 100 countries, she is redefining what it means to be a copywriter in the digital age. Her mission is to defy the bro status quo and build a business that feeds your soul, fuels connection and funds your dream life. The next generation of writers can definitely learn a thing or two from Alex about building a business on their own terms. Because no matter how much we try to deny it, words still run the Internet. And the right ones? They run businesses.

Alex Cattoni

Pressure Communication Expert: Talking on Thin Ice (Washington, USA)

You know that meeting where someone says, “So… help me understand,” and suddenly you’re negotiating your entire self-worth in real time. Talking on Thin Ice is for those exact moments. This session is about what actually happens to your brain when pressure enters the room — and how to stay sharp instead of spiralling or over-explaining your resignation in the middle of the conversation. Jule breaks down how to communicate clearly when stakes are high, emotions are louder than logic and everyone’s pretending to be calm. You’ll learn how to hold your ground, say the hard thing without combusting and leave the room with more influence than you walked in with. Because in creative industries, the ice gets thin fast and knowing how to stand on it is a skill.

Jule Kim: Talking on Thin Ice — Solid Communication for Delicate Situations

Attention Economy Pioneer | CEO and Co-founder at Lumen Research (UK)



Hall AAA | Saturday | 3:15 PM The uncomfortable moment usually comes quietly. A campaign reports great reach. The dashboard looks healthy. Spend keeps flowing. And then someone asks the question no one really wants to answer: Did anyone actually look at it? That’sthe attention problem Mike Follett has built his career around. Not to provoke for sport, but to replace confidence theatre with evidence — and to (finally) show, with hard data, how often marketing mistakes visibility for value.



Mike’s thinking is grounded in large-scale, empirical data. His (a bit strange, but effective) eye-tracking research spans billions of ad exposures across platforms, formats, and markets, proving — repeatedly — that not all impressions are equal, and that attention is both measurable and predictive of real business outcomes. His work directly challenges comfortable but flawed industry assumptions, including last-click attribution and superficial engagement metrics, replacing them with models that explain why ads work, when they work and where money is wasted.



Mike Follett brings marketers something rare: clarity backed by evidence. So yeah, he is definitely a motivational talker — he delivers hard and serious sessions that will make you rethink media value, creative effectiveness and ROI from the ground up. As he said himself: “Not all attention data is equal, so buyer beware. Our attention models are based on real human eye tracing data, collected from over 700,000 people across 37 countries. Maybe this is why our models work — and others are less successful.” Ouch.

Mike Follett

The Attention Advantage: Winning the Attention Economy (UK)

How much attention do your ads actually need to create a memory? And does it take more attention to build long-term brand memories than it does to spark short-term reminders that drive action in the moment? Join Mike Follett as he unpacks the findings from the dentsu Brand Reset project — the world’s largest investigation into the relationship between attention and memory. Follett will break down the difference between fleeting exposure and meaningful attention, and what it takes for a message to move from “seen” to “remembered.” Expect fresh evidence and a sharper understanding of how attention translates into brand impact — in both the short term and the long term.

Mike Follett: The Long and the Short of Attention and Memory

Hall AAA | Thursday | 9 PM



You know that moment when your whole team sits a little straighter in their chairs? When someone says, "Whatever happens, we're proud," but nobody is actually that relaxed?



That’s BalCannes.



For the first festival night in Hall AAA, the entire region comes together — agencies and advertisers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia — to see which ideas truly travelled beyond their local bubble.



This is not just about the trophies. Okay, fine, it's absolutely about the trophies; we know you’ve already cleared space on your shelves and drafted a LinkedIn post, but what really matters is what those shiny trophies mean: ideas that made it through pressure, politics and production, and still felt fresh. Plus, eternal regional bragging rights, which is always a nice bonus.



So let's see what the region really did this year. See you at the ceremony.

BalCannes 2026 Awards Show

CEO of World Federation of Advertisers (Belgium)

You can tell a lot about the state of our industry by looking at how brands choose agencies. The criteria might sound rational, the decks look super polished, the intentions are usually good, yet the process still manages to expose all sorts of anxieties around trust, control, money, speed and who is actually meant to lead.&nbsp;



To open the festival, the CEO of the World Federation of Advertisers Stephan Loerke joins us for a fireside chat about where the communications industry is heading through the eyes of the world’s biggest marketers. We’ll get into the new WFA’s and VoxComm’s Agency Selection Guiding Principles, what advertisers now expect from agency partners, which tensions are shaping brand decisions behind closed doors and why partnership quality is becoming a serious business issue again. This is also a rare chance to get a cleaner read on the fears, pressures and ambitions currently driving global advertiser thinking. Which is usually far more interesting than whatever they say in polished case studies.

Stephan Loerke: Inside the Minds of Global Advertisers

Day 1

Strategic Analyst of Europe's Media and Ad Shifts (UK)

By the time the advertising market starts making perfect sense, the smart money has usually moved on. Daniel Knapp is coming to Rovinj to do the useful part earlier, exclusively for your ears. He will reveal what is shifting across European and global markets, separate the signal from the usual industry self-soothing and point to what will matter in the months ahead. He is pulling clues from market behaviour, media investment shifts, IAB Europe AdEx data and the signals most of you notice once they have already become headlines — and assembling all of it into the bigger picture you came for. So, if you want an exclusive read on what 2026 still has up its sleeve (and what 2027 is already plotting), this is one of those sessions you do not hear about second-hand.

Daniel Knapp: Tomorrow’s Advertising Market, Today

Effie &amp; MIXX 2026 Awards Show

IdejaX &amp; Young Lions 2026 Awards Show

DK LLLounge | Saturday | 10:45 AM



IdejaX exists for one reason: to spotlight the ideas that had the creative nerve to do something less obvious.&nbsp;And once&nbsp;again, the creative experts assembled in the IdejaX 2026 jury have selected the cream of the&nbsp;crop —&nbsp;everything will be revealed at the grand awards show on Friday, 8 May in Hall AAA.&nbsp;



There are usually three types of people in the room that night: those going up on stage and already planning a repeat performance next&nbsp;year,&nbsp;those applauding while secretly&nbsp;thinking to themselves,&nbsp;"Why not me?", and the lovely supportive colleagues who came for the team, the drama and a front-row seat to the best ideas of 2026 on our big screens.&nbsp;



Whichever type you are, you should definitely head to DK Lounge the day after the awards show because you'll get to pose those burning questions you had the night before to the IdejaX juries directly as well as get an exclusive overview of the entire season from the jury! You’ll get to ask the IdejaX juries directly and hear this season wrap-up.

The Morning After: IdejaX Jury Q&amp;A

DK2026: Lights On

Welcome to DK2026, where no two stages are the same and each is designed to fit your vibe.&nbsp;



Hall AAA is our main stage with the infamous centre stage — the place where the world's biggest industry legends take the spotlight and where DK turns glamorous in the evenings for the luxurious awards shows. This is where legends are made. Go next to the conference bar and prepare to have your mind blown. 



Hall BEE is where the real, unfiltered discussions and presentations with our local experts are happening. This is the hall for raw opinions, fierce debates and a lot of “I didn’t know that!” moments. Find it on the reception level.



DK LLLounge is the place for you if you need something more laid-back. It’s cozy and casual. It’s where the magic happens when you least expect it. Just go next to the registration at the reception level and you'll find the place for intimate convos and unexpected ideas at DK.



POOLSIDE Stage is a stage for anyone craving talks that are as intriguing as they are offbeat. It's located between the Lone outside pools and the beach, so come by and enjoy the shade with a side of thought-provoking discussions and a refreshing vibe.



[NEW STAGE] The Garden Stage powered by Somersby. Yes, you heard that right, we’re introducing another stage. You might have a hard time deciding where to go next, but that’s a luxury problem. Go to the Lone terrace on the ground floor and just outside you’ll find DK’s new spot for great ideas.

Halls of DK

The PR &amp; Comms Dilemma: Truth or Lie?

A Story (Finally) Told: The Marketing Playbook with Mate Rimac and Damir Sabol

The Garden Stage powered by Somersby | Friday | 3:40 PM



You might know him as that cool-looking, tattooed Michelin-star chef, turned consultant and a pilot (yes, he’s smart, he cooks, he flies too, so stop swooning, ladies), but Mario Mandarić is also the proud owner of a name that caused a small cultural earthquake. In the Kult Plave Kamenice case, he made a bold and principled move that challenged industry habits and sparked a wider conversation on fairness, integrity and responsible business. After discovering the name had never been protected, he trademarked Kult Plave Kamenice with himself the legal owner and then turned the entire saga into live theatre — opening an Advent pop-up under the brand and serving dishes titled “Journalistic Racket”, “Marketing Services” and even a €12 “Positive Article” beef goulash that came with a side of satire. Suddenly everyone had an opinion (which was kind of the point).



In this one-on-one, our very own Dunja Ivana Ballon (DK Festival &amp; Program Director) sits down with Mario Mandarić to unpack the moment of decision: what pushed it, what followed and why that move matters far beyond one media story. He'll tell us more about the case that exposed a blind spot in how brands are built today — launched publicly, scaled socially and monetized culturally, often without any defensive strategy in place. This can be a reminder to everyone that sometimes the boldest form of brand leadership is standing your ground and that your brand should also be your trademark. Be more like Mario.

Trademarked: The Kult Plave Kamenice Power Move — In Conversation with Mario Mandarić

Did Video Really Kill the Radio Star?

POOLSIDE Stage | Friday | 12:15 PM



You’ve all heard that ChatGPT is testing getting ads. So the obvious question is no longer if — but what kind of channel this becomes. Will it become the next performance goldmine? A brand-safe search replacement? The future of intent-based media buying? Or a catastrophic mess waiting to happen? If AI platforms turn into advertising inventory, everything media agencies, digital teams and advertisers care about comes into play: targeting, attribution, pricing models, transparency, brand safety, SEO, discoverability and control. Who gets visibility when answers are no longer organic? Is this Google Search 2.0 — or something far more opaque? And what happens to performance logic when the "user journey" is a conversation?



This panel led by Božidar Abramović (CEO, Omnicom Media Group, Member of HURA &amp; IAB Croatia) with Ivana Kulenović (Head of Growth, Pro media group, Member of HURA &amp; IAB Croatia), Fran Mubrin (Creative Director, 404, Partner, MYTY, Member of HURA &amp; IAB Croatia) and Zorin Radovančević (Head of Analytics, Escape, Member of IAB Croatia) looks at what Sponsored Intelligence really means for media buying, performance, SEO and advertisers — not in theory, but in practice. Is this a new category of advertising we should be testing yesterday? Or a channel that will break more things than it fixes? What is your perspective: excited about a fresh opportunity or predicting a strategic nightmare? Are we looking at a future-defining channel — or just another shiny toy with a billing model?

Beach Stream: Main Hall Stream with a Sea View

Hall BEE | Friday | 12:15 PM



In our market, every milestone is a stress test. And while brand anniversaries here may not turn into global cultural moments, they become something just as revealing: a leadership moment, a relevance check, a budgeting decision — and yes, a very public exam. But they’re also something more. They’re proof of resilience and consistency, of surviving trends, crises and competition and still being here. The real challenge, of course, is staying fresh, modern and forward-looking instead of slowly turning into a legacy dinosaur.



When your market is smaller, everyone already knows you. Everyone has an opinion and everyone remembers your last mistake. Which makes every brand anniversary a chance to show evolution. Moderated by Ida Prester (Moderator &amp; TV Journalist) with Marko Janković (Director, Jedinica), Tamara Karagity (Corporate Communications &amp; Marketing Director, INA, Member of IAB Croatia), Marcela Rukavina (Director of Media Solutions, Native Advertising and miss7 Group, 24sata) and Tatjana Spajić (Corporate Communications Director, Studenac), this panel will explore how brands turn years into momentum, how they celebrate without standing still and how they prove they’re still bold, contemporary and ambitious. In a market like ours, longevity is all about staying relevant, respected and ready for what’s next, while at the same time continuously reinventing yourself to remain exciting, current and unmistakably alive.

Birthday or Stress Test? What Brand Anniversaries Reveal About Brands powered by Studenac

Versatility of Creativity: Between the Quiet and the Noise

What Actually Gets Approved: The “Yes” Formula

Regulating Influence: Do We Need New Rules for the Creator Economy?

Birthday or Stress Test? What Brand Anniversaries Reveal About Brands

There's something slightly surreal about listening to a world-class speaker while the sea is doing its own keynote in the background. Beach Stream is that little DK glitch in the matrix. The Main Hall program, live, but with salt in the air, pebbles under your feet and sunshine that makes every idea feel 12% smarter. You're half in a conference, half on holiday. Somehow it works.



Here you sit down "just for one talk." Two hours later you’re still there, still learning, nodding, maybe pretending you're not checking how good you look in that natural beach lighting. It's education with a horizon line. Strategy with sunscreen. And that specific DK magic where serious conversations happen in completely fabulous surroundings.

Beach Stream: Main Hall Stream with a Sea View powered by Badel Pelinkovac Summer

DKLUB PRESENTS EDO MAAJKA: SLUŠAJ MATER PARTY

The Way We Pitch Shapes the Kind of Industry We Build

POOLSIDE Stage | Friday | 10:45 AM



Podcasting in Croatia has moved far beyond experimentation. There are some big names on the market that enjoy the support of loyal audiences (and those that launch and disappear after episode four…). So what separates the two? How do the biggest Croatian podcasters use long-form attention so successfully without depending on the whim of algorithms? What does it actually take to build that kind of relationship with listeners? How do you grow from first upload to a recognizable platform? And what happens behind the mic that the audience never sees?



On stage, we'll have podcasters you already recognize by name alone. Led by Krešimir Macan (Newsfluencer &amp; Podcaster, Špica s Macanom, Manjgura, Member of HURA &amp; IAB Croatia), Mia Biberović (Editor in Chief, Netokracija/ShiftMag), Roko Kalafatić (Head of Video Content, Lider, Member of IAB Croatia), Ratko Martinović (Podcaster, Podcast Inkubator) and Vinko Mihaljević (Founder of LOOD MEDIA, Podcast Production, Member of IAB Croatia) will open their studio doors to give you an exclusive behind-the-mic look at their editorial decisions, production workflows, distribution strategy, monetisation models, partner expectations and all the other elements that make their podcast so damn successful. By the time this panel ends, you’ll understand that the difference between episode four and episode four hundred has little to do with talent alone and everything to do with decisions most people never even think about. We bet you'll never again say "we should start a podcast" the same way.

What Croatia’s Sharpest Podcasters Know That You Don’t

Hall AAA | Thursday | 2:30 PM



It’s official: DK2026 begins now. Okay not now as in now now, but you know. The future now. Just imagine it's 7 May. That now.



After a year of plotting, obsessing over the lineup you’d like, planning production that would enhance your experience, wondering how to outdo ourselves (don’t even get us started on weather anxiety), all to give you the best festival we could — we’re finally here. And you’re all finally here with us. The best of the communication and creative industry, all in one place. And we built it for you: our community, our crew, our people. It’s you who make DK what it is.



Over the next few days you can expect rooms worth squeezing into, people worth running after, conversations worth missing your next plan for and a schedule with absolutely no respect for your need to be everywhere (if you haven't heard about our luxury problem, read about it <a href="https://danikomunikacija.com/about">here</a>). 



But before all the talks, the awards and the afterparties, the people helping shape this festival together with the HURA &amp; IAB Croatia communities that gathers around it will welcome you to DK2026. Festival and Program Director, Dunja Ivana Ballon and Chairwoman of HURA, Jelena Fiškuš, will open the show, joined by our DK Organizing Committee members Anđela Buljan Šiber, Davor Bruketa and Damir Ciglar. They'll get things started and send us all straight into three days of ideas, opinions, collisions and very little standing still.



Let’s make it count.



Welcome to DK2026.

speakers

Jürgen Schmidhuber

Julie Supan

Mark Pollard

Chris Do

Dora Pekeč

Daan Klaver

Alex Cattoni

Neil Patel

Steve Keller

Jule Kim

Mike Follett

Stephan Loerke

Daniel Knapp

Mic Drop

BalCannes 2026 Awards Show

Effie & MIXX 2026 Awards Show

IdejaX & Young Lions 2026 Awards Show

DK2026: Lights On

Sponsored Intelligence: The Next Ad Channel?