There was no evident display of superiority or trace of bravado as Jasper Ilagan, Jedd Ilagan, and Third Domingo stood together and played beer pong with adobo Magazine. While occasional self-admonishment insisting on complete honesty surfaced every now and then, all three comfortably chugged and requested refills of free-flowing craft beer as they answered the most pressing questions.
You’d think they were brothers. Well, there’s truth behind that; Jasper and Jedd are brothers by blood, with five years between them and a shared professional evolution having pulled them closer together. Third, whose surname sets him apart, nonetheless identifies himself as an Ilagan both in spirit and in practice. The three of them speak with neither distance nor hesitation, but with ease rooted in the accumulation of shared risks, shared disappointment, and shared experiences that have shaped how each of them understands creative work and responsibility.
The work that tests you
That familiarity does nothing to dilute their honesty. When asked what kind of work scares them, Jedd’s response — articulated after a few sips of Jade’s Temple Craft Beer — pits pragmatism against principle.
“There’s always the whole argument wherein: Is it something that you have to do to put food on the table? Or is it something that is very much aligned with your values?”
As Chief Executive Officer of IdeasXMachina Hakuhodo, Jedd no longer makes decisions that affect only himself. He acknowledges that leadership introduces a dimension of accountability that complicates creative idealism. While certain projects may not align perfectly with personal values, they often serve a larger purpose in sustaining the agency and the people who depend on it. There are moments, he admits, when agencies accept work from less-than-ideal parties not for the sake of creative fulfillment, but out of responsibility.
“There are times you decide to work with unsavory clients,” he says, “because you know that you’re doing it for the greater good.”
Jasper, who leads NJYN Hakuhodo as Chief Executive Officer, describes a different kind of fear — one that speaks less to ethics and more to trust.
“I think the scariest part is presenting the second campaign,” he says. “Because it might not work as good as the first campaign, and I value that relationship more than the ideas that we put out.”
His answer reflects a shift that comes with creative maturity. Success creates expectations, and the pressure to sustain creative relationships becomes as significant as the work itself. The challenge lies not only in producing strong ideas, but in protecting the confidence clients place in them.
The discipline of friction
Much of how Jasper and Jedd understand creative leadership can be traced back to their proximity to Third, long before they assumed leadership roles themselves. When asked whether they would rather spend the rest of their careers managing people or focusing solely on creative work, both admit the distinction is not as clear-cut as it seems.
Jasper expresses his preference for remaining creatively involved, but emphasizes that effective management demands creative instinct. Managing people, he explains, involves navigating personalities, motivations, and emotional realities that cannot be resolved through rigid systems alone.
Jedd shares this view, reflecting on his experience leading IdeasXMachina Hakuhodo over the past three years. “It’s always finding a way to ensure that whole creative energy is not lost,” he says.
At this point, Third, who now leads Hakuhodo International Asia Pacific as its Chief Creative Officer, turns the question toward himself, asking whether he had managed them properly. The question is direct, almost humble — less a bid for praise than an honest evaluation of his own influence.
“You have creatively placed us where we will blossom,” says Jasper, affirming Third’s intentionality, which might have been misunderstood by others.
Rather than shielding them from difficulty, Third exposed them to situations that demanded growth. Jedd elaborates further, admitting that this approach was not gentle but ultimately formative.
“Your teaching style is my learning style,” Jedd says of Third’s brand of uncompromising sharpness. “There’s a certain level of pagiging kupal that is necessary to bring out the best in people. You have to be told that you’re not good enough. That’s when you get good.”
Forged by the same fire
Their influence on one another, however, extends beyond mentorship. Third credits Jasper, his first employee, with teaching him the value of patience and forcing him to articulate his instincts more clearly. Jedd, in turn, brought structure and analytical clarity.
“He’s the method to madness,” Third says of Jedd.
Jasper learned to embrace differences through Third, making sense of his unyielding and unflinching bravery in creativity. It gave him a deeper understanding of creativity not as mere embellishment, but as problem-solving — a means of offering concrete solutions.
Jedd, meanwhile, credits Jasper for opening his perspective, which led to greater things.
“He was able to show me perspective and open me up to a world that I never knew about, and it turns out to be the best thing I never knew I needed.”
Jedd’s most profound learning, however, came from Third. He recalls how Third consistently urged his team to find their “unfair advantage.” Unlike Third and Jasper, Jedd did not have formal training in marketing, communications, or advertising. With undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Biology, his path to the industry was unconventional. Yet it was precisely this difference that became his edge.
Third taught him that science was something unique — something few others in the room could claim — and that it should be leveraged rather than concealed. “Science is something that probably you’re the only person here who knows about, so use it to your advantage,” Jedd recalls Third saying. And so he did, using research to find the method within advertising’s madness.
Third frames legacy not as something an individual completes, but as something that continues far beyond them.
“You can only start things,” he says. “You can only begin things. And then it’s the others who hopefully, we wish, can build on those things that we make.”
For him, legacy is not defined by awards won or campaigns launched, but by continuity. He looks at Jasper and Jedd not simply as successors, but as extensions of the work he began.
“You are my legacy. Build on what we have built and trust that you know that our clients trust you also,” he tells them. “Believe it or not, I just want to create things that people will continue to build.”
Shaped by context, contradiction, and lived experience
This way of leading mirrors Hakuhodo’s Sei-katsu-sha philosophy — the belief that people are not roles or outputs, but fully formed human beings shaped by context, contradiction, and lived experience. It is easy to apply that thinking to consumers. It is harder — and more revealing — to apply it inward.
Jasper and Jedd were not managed as titles-in-waiting. They were seen as people in progress. Their creative bravery did not materialize out of talent alone; it was built through proximity, sharpened by critique, and strengthened by trust. Now, standing where Third once stood, they inherit the same obligation: to see clearly, to challenge honestly, and to build others the way they themselves were built.
What passes between them is not authority, but courage carried forward — the kind that Jedd, as CEO of IdeasXMachina Hakuhodo, and Jasper, as CEO of NJYN Hakuhodo, continue to foster as bold creative leaders shaping what’s next.
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adoboLIVE! 2018 Cannes Young Lions PH reps Jo Aguilar and Jasper Ilagan of IXM
