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A CONSUMER CONNECT INITIATIVE

ADVERTORIAL & PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

AN ECONOMIC TIMES PRESENTATION, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013

GOAFEST 2013 saw the celebration of creativity, creativity and more creativity. It lived up to its promise of Expecting the unexpected. From top industry leaders to young adlanders, the fest proved to be a great place to learn, network and unwind. Sheetal Srivastava Reddy and Rounak Guharoy get you the details

Gold, Silver, Bronze andBeer!


and increased the number of followers on the digital domain. Bernardin concluded that having a onepoint social handle to cover the entire spectrum is more credible than having multiple solution social points. Another interesting session was by Pepsis Global Head-Digital, Shiv Singh. He spoke about how in todays perfectly competitive market, no one cares about marketing anymore and thus, its important to do what matters the most. According to him, it is necessary for brands to leverage cultural elements for their communication plans, even if it is social the youngest emerging media vehicle. It can be observed that Pepsi as a brand has incorporated culturally elements such as music and being an integral part of various large scale sports properties in various global markets. Singh pointed out that social can create wonders when it comes to building brand conversations. He was of the opinion that investing in social will help brands to think about experiences as more than advertising response. Ace film director Abhishek Kapoor spoke his heart out to the audience as he shared how his early years had been a time of struggle and self-doubt. Still, he said, he had persevered because he believed in what he wanted to do. Starting a career as a failed actor and director and then persisting with the latter just because he enjoyed doing it, was one of the main reasons he attributed to his success. According to him, it becomes very difficult for a person when everyone around him is continuously casting doubts on his goal, but the mantra he remarked was to have selfbelief. Seeking an example from his own career path, he added, that after his film Rock On, it took him four years to make Kai Po Che. And finally, it was Amir Kassaei, Chief Creative Officer, DDB Worldwide, who the organisers finally managed to get to Goafest, after trying for two years. Taking cue from his previous speakers, he stressed on the fact that brands should start creating strategies which are customer oriented. He highlighted the example of Apple, about how the brand is building all the possible touch points for the customer, starting from building a great product. He also added that brands dont have to reinvent the business to build brand networks. In fact, he surprised the audience by saying there is nothing called social media. Brands, he said, can succeed by just being social and creative.

ARVIND SHARMA President, Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI)

We are very happy with the participation from our neighbouring countries. The Conclave and Knowledge Seminars were more productive than any of the previous years.

PIC: SOHAM PISAT

A panel discussion at the Advertising Conclave of Goafest themed 'Time to Listen.' From L TO r: Nitin Paranjpe, MD and CEO, HUL; Arunabh Das Sharma, president, BCCL; Sunil Alagh of SKA Advisors, Suresh Bandi, deputy MD, Panasonic India; RS Sodhi, managing director, Amul India; Arundhati Bhattacharya, managing director, SBI Capital Markets and Harit Nagpal, MD and CEO, Tata Sky
oafest 2013 kicked off with a stellar lineup of the whoswho of the industry talking on a wide range of subjects. Right from its inception, the festival has focused on ideas to generate great ideas. There is a saying in advertising; Innovations happen when your ideas have SEX and this was the foreground for exercising that. As the industry head honchos put it: its a festival for all people who believed in the power of ideas. thought leaders from around the world to come and share their own unexpected experiences. Needless to say, the halls were packed with adwallahs eagerly absorbing every word that was spoken. convergence between technology, media and creativity helps in creating business insights that allows brands to imagine, create and enable customer experiences. He also stressed on rejecting silos and employing agile methodology and rapid prototype for brands. Maxus Worldwides Global Planning Director, Nick Vale emphasised on the importance of sticking to the basics in communication. He said that communication is all about people and ideas in mind. According to Vale, its important to hone the ability of driving simplicity in a complex communication situation. He also stressed on the ability to transform Big Ideas to Long Ideas, seeking examples from the campaigns of Nike Plus and American Expresss campaign on Facebook. According to him, a long idea has the strategic ability to travel across medium. Speaking on the topic Democratisation of Creativity, Dave Alberts of Mo Film said that for a filmmaker, the most important aspect of democratisation is freedom. He said that independence of thought was the key to making groundbreaking and memorable films. Any filmmaker can make a film of broadcast quality, he said, quoting Francis Ford Coppola who had once remarked, Some little fat girl in Ohio is going to make a beautiful movie with her fathers camcorder. ferent note with spiritual keynote speaker Swami Sukhabodhanandas talking on Uncertainty is also a part of life. He started his session by giving a reference of snakes and how 75 per cent of snake bites are non-poisonous. But still 75 per cent of the time, when a snake bites, people die out of fear, he said adding a touch of humour to his talk to the full house. He spoke about how uncertainty can be tackled. The entire experience was a soothing and calming one on the nerves of all the nominees. According to Swamiji, uncertainty in its purity is not an experience. One never factually experiences uncertainty. The translator translates it based on the programming (of the past), he said. Tom Bernardin, Chairman and CEO, Leo Burnett Worldwide discussed the various aspects of advertising. Looking at the global competition among brands, Bernardin said brands need to identify four key mediums in communicating with todays consumer first key medium was Social in the form of social media. To substantiate his theory, he presented a case study of the brand, Samsung. He showed how Samsung initially was cluttered with too many Facebook pages, irrelevant activities and fragmented loyalty. To rectify the process, Samsung along with Leo Burnett, created a social media centre. This resulted in less clutter on the media

NAKUL CHOPRA Chairman, Goafest 2013

DAY 01
The first day of the fest kickstarted with WARCs Asia-Pacific Director, Roger Mulchandani whose topic was Seriously Social. As the topic suggests, Roger spoke on the power of social media and how the business of communications has changed with the evolution of social media over the past few years. In his presentation, he pitched on the fact that brands should experiment with content today. It is essential to generate content that is shareable and brands should break rules or taboos while designing content for social. It is also essential that content on social has a humourous flavour and make use of quirky use of celebrity. According to him, contents on social have the power to advocate a cause that can be inspirational, he said. After Rogers insightful presentation on Social Media and Social Networking, it was time for Ray Velez, Razorfishs Global Chief Technology Officer to talk about transforming business marketing strategies through the use of technology. In the last decade, he said, marketing has gone through a facelift and technology has helped businesses and its marketing strategies to transform. According to him, technology added with media and creativity, creates new brand experiences. But this doesnt mean that creativity is not important. Velez felt that the

There were many areas of vast improvement this year at Goafest in terms of the Conclave and Knowledge Seminars. There were many areas of learning, especially the award process and we hope to take these learnings to next years fest.

Whats New?Industry Conclave


Agencies are used to facing this question from its clients and thus, in order to understand their clients better and share a healthy agency-client relationship, the fest decided to organise the Industry Conclave, an agencyclient interactive session with the theme, Time to Listen (see lead pic). It was the perfect opportunity for the clients to air expectations from agencies through a series of panel discussions. The evening witnessed marketers sharing concerns about the agencies, the dynamics of clientagency relationships and their experiences and expectations of advertising agencies. They also spoke about advertising ethics and trends that raise concerns.

And the fest begins


Whenever we think of Goa/Goafest, we tend to associate it with Sun, Sand and Beer - three days of sheer intoxication thanks to the unlimited or free flow of beer and whiskey (and also cold drinks; just to keep the non-alcoholics happy!). But Goafest has more to it in terms of the kind of speakers who grace the fest. The organisers endeavoured to provide enough food for thought along with drinks by bringing in

DAY 02
Advertising as an industry is known for its unconventional ways of working and Goafest wasnt any different from that. Taking the unconventional route, Day two of the fest began on a dif-

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