------------------------------------------------------- CONVENTION OF THE GOAN DIASPORA FROM GOA INTO THE WORLD Lisbon, Portugal June 15-17, 2007 Details at: http://www.goacom.org/casa-de-goa/noticias.html -------------------------------------------------------
http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?sectionName=Business&contentId=2380970&programId=1073754899&pageTypeId=1073754893&contentType=EDITORIAL&BV_ID=@@@ Ad and subtract - Dnyanesh Jathar ADVERTISING Will the hoopla in Goa help the Indian ad industry? For the second time in succession, the lords of the Rs 15,000 crore Indian advertisement industry flocked together on the fabulous beaches of Goa. They vowed to make it worth Rs 50,000 crore in the next five years. Good creative works will help them meet their targets. But are the rank and file of the ad industry united? No, it seems. Goafest, organised recently by Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) betrayed the divisions in the industry. Leading ad firms Ogilvy & Mather (O&M) and Lowe did not participate. For them, it seems to be a question of which is bigger-Goafest or the Abby awards by Advertising Club of Bombay. The Goafest came about two years ago when agencies like Leo Burnett and McCann-Erikson thought that O&M was too dominant at the Abby awards. While O&M showed loyalty to Abby, Lowe stayed away from the event saying it did not have impressive works to nominate for the awards. The issue was taken up by Pramath Raj Sinha, managing director of the Anandabazar Patrika Group, in his address. "If agencies have stayed away because they have aligned with a rival awards show, are we then behaving as an industry?" he asked. Goafest may have started as a move to counter the Abby awards but the organisers want it to emerge as a parallel to Cannes. It is a good preparatory ground for Indian advertising agencies before they send their entries to Cannes. "It has been timed before Cannes. The format, the categories, the process of judging are all similar to Cannes. The aim is to make it a Cannes of India. But, yes, there is a lot of politics involved, which is hampering Indian advertising fraternity," said an advertising professional. The two-day event saw advertising experts Trevor Beattie, Donald Gunn of Gunn Report and Maureen Johnson address the gathering. It also provided networking opportunities to advertising professionals. Said Yajuvendra Gore, an advertising professional: "Young professionals like me gained a lot from the Goafest, especially from the seminars. Trevor Beattie's talk gave an insight into how an advertising professional should blend his creativity with the marketing needs of the client and his products desired customer base." The number of delegates almost doubled to 2,300 this year, and the overall budget for the event was Rs 5 crore, up from Rs 1.5 crore last year. This time the organisers also included media awards along with the creative awards. The creative awards were given in the print, outdoor, radio, interactive media and television categories. "Goafest is about recognising and celebrating excellence in advertising. It is about putting all the good work under the spotlight rather than picking one individual winner by force-fitting artificial weightages on very different awards," said Arvind Sharma, chairman of the Goafest committee. While RediffusionDYR led the pack by winning 50 awards across all categories, Grey Worldwide ranked second and Leo Burnett stood third. But Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman of McCann-Erikson, was not happy with the quality of ideas in print category, of which he was the jury chairman. "The quality of ideas and writing has gone down. One of the reasons behind this could be that a minuscule part of the campaign money goes to print. People have emotional bonding with television whereas they use print only for information," he said. A senior media professional felt that the seminars at the event were rather weak even though the attendance had doubled. "The output of the seminars did not meet the expectations. The attendance doubled because of the organiser's strategy to sponsor young professionals below 30. Similar tactics, if applied next year, will result in attendance touching 5,000," he said. But a senior advertising professional said, "A certain amount of talent drain is taking place, people are leaving advertising and making career in films, Internet firms and even marketing firms. Given the scenario, such an event goes a long way to motivate young professionals. The winning of awards at Goafest has left young professionals in our agency completely charged. This is the very good effect that Goafest has done to us." So, is Rs 50,000 crore a realistic target for the ad world? "Absolutely," said an advertising professional. "The level of spending is very low today. Given the economic growth, Rs 50,000 crore is a very achievable target in five years." And what about the divide in the fraternity? "These lines have been drawn for years," said an industry insider. "I have been seeing this for the last decade and a half. It is as much about personality clashes and egos as it is about one-upmanship among agencies. After all it is an individual who leads an agency."
