Marielle Descalsota
Marielle Descalsota focuses on how entertainment IP, digital platforms, and fan communities translate into business for brands. She writes for Campaign Asia on technology-led shifts in consumer culture, using case-study features to show marketers what works in practice rather than in theory.
Gaming franchises and fan communities as marketing case studies
In her Campaign Asia feature on what marketers can learn from Pokémon’s US$150 billion brand machine, Descalsota treats the franchise as a blueprint for building and sustaining fan communities across decades.
She breaks down how a single IP stretches across console games, mobile apps, trading cards, animation, live experiences, and merchandise, and then pulls out specific lessons for marketers on cross-generational engagement and brand longevity. She is interested in how technology enables this scale, from mobile gaming to online communities, and in how those touchpoints feed back into data, content, and new products.
Her approach in this kind of piece is to connect the creative world-building that fans see with the brand systems and revenue models that marketers care about.
First-person reporting on digital-era consumer experiences
Alongside her work for Campaign Asia, Descalsota has a substantial body of reporting for Insider, where she often puts herself in the role of the customer to explain new consumer experiences. She has written first-person stories that walk through an entire journey - booking on an app, navigating check-in, using a service or space, and tallying the true cost at the end - to show how digital brands and platforms deliver on their promises.
She uses these narratives to surface frictions that marketing copy glosses over, whether that is opaque pricing, clunky interfaces, or gaps between “seamless” tech and on-the-ground operations. The result is coverage that gives communications and product teams a detailed view of how tech-enabled services feel to real users.
Asia-focused coverage of youth culture, platforms, and luxury
Across outlets, Descalsota pays close attention to how younger consumers in Asia discover and engage with brands through technology. She has reported on trends in travel, retail, and dining that are driven by social platforms, from viral experiences that sell out in days to luxury concepts built for Instagram and TikTok. Her stories often follow Gen Z and millennial behaviour end to end: how they encounter a trend online, what convinces them to spend, and how they share or critique the experience afterward. She treats luxury and pop culture with the same lens, asking how creators, idols, and influencers use platforms to build status, and how brands in turn adapt their products, pricing, and physical spaces to stay desirable.
Explaining business models in clear, accessible language
Whether she is unpacking a global gaming franchise or reviewing a new consumer-tech service, Descalsota writes with a focus on how the underlying business works.
She is drawn to stories where technology changes distribution, access, or status - and makes a point of spelling out revenue streams, cost structures, and unit economics in plain language. Her coverage blends on-the-ground reporting, user experience detail, and concise explanation of strategy so that a general reader can grasp both the appeal and the business logic. That combination of fan-facing detail and boardroom-friendly analysis distinguishes her work from generic technology reporting that focuses only on product launches or funding rounds.
4 more technology journalists.
Adam Conway
Adam Conway stands out for treating consumer tech as systems to experiment with rather than products to set and forget. He is a journalist at XDA who covers phones, networks, and DIY-friendly hardware with a tinkerer’s mindset. His work focuses on hands-on testing, clear explanations, and practical ways to push devices further. He writes in depth about enthusiast hardware such as ESP32-based touchscreens, mesh networking projects, and off-grid communication tools, emphasizing setup, usability, and trade-offs. On the mobile team, he covers Android phones, software updates, and ecosystem changes, digging into network performance, battery behavior, and connectivity features. He also writes detailed how-tos on modding, customization, and configuration, with a focus on risks, prerequisites, and real-world use. His coverage is analytical, enthusiast-focused, and aimed at readers who act on his reporting.
Adnan Farooqui
Adnan Farooqui is a technology journalist at SamMobile whose work centers on Samsung’s hardware, software and strategy, with a focus on what its moves mean for the company’s future. He treats foldable phones as a strategic inflection point, using devices like the Galaxy Z Flip line to examine portfolio strategy, demand, cost and competition, and to track how long Samsung sustains product lines. He also covers the everyday Galaxy ecosystem of phones, tablets, wearables and the software that connects them, following One UI and Android updates, security patches and new features. His reporting ties product news to business decisions, pricing, launch strategy, software support windows and subscription pushes. He blends fast news with analysis, separates confirmed facts from his own reading of events, and uses plain language to frame why Samsung’s choices matter to different buyers.
Alex Heath
Alex Heath covers the AI race and the tech industry’s inside conversation through scoops, internal documents, product roadmaps, and interviews with leaders. He founded Sources in 2025, an independent newsletter and podcast about artificial intelligence, platform strategy, AI talent, compute, search, agent-based interfaces, and experimental hardware. His reporting examines companies including Meta, Google, OpenAI, Apple, Amazon, and X, and explains how their internal decisions affect products, talent, users, and the broader tech ecosystem. He has interviewed Mark Zuckerberg, Demis Hassabis, Sam Altman, and Daniel Ek. Before Sources, he spent more than a decade at Business Insider, The Information, and The Verge. He covered Facebook, Snap, Twitter, apps, and streaming services, then led reporting on major technology companies. His Command Line newsletter developed the inside-conversation approach he now uses at Sources. He also co-hosts ACCESS and uses AI tools to support drafting and editing.
Alexander Haro
Alexander Haro stands out for surf and ocean culture coverage that focuses on how people really use gear and technology in the water. He writes for surf readers who care about feel, not specs, and he often uses specific surfers, sessions, and waves to show how new equipment, design ideas, and board-building trends change the ride. He writes regularly about surf equipment, especially foiling, and he covers surf craft, foils, and the practical effects of new gear on paddling, speed, and wave connection. His work is short, session-driven, and video-led, with measured, conversational reporting that avoids hype while respecting surf history and newer ideas.