With six major creative agencies skipping the industry’s premier advertising festival this year, the spotlight is on the purpose and content of Goafest
By Srabana Lahiri
Goafest 2014 has arrived with a personality all its own. Even as six major creative agencies decide to stay away from Goafest, its theme - ‘Brand Baaja Baaraat’ - is going to be played out to the hilt with the addition of more fun elements to the festival such as beach tournaments and all-day adventure sports, the latter albeit at the same time as the knowledge seminars, in addition to the traditional raindance.
“That is what Goafest should be – everybody is there to have a great time and celebrate. Brand Baaja Baarat demonstrates the feeling that we want to bring to Goafest – it is not just about an awards night; it is a great place to celebrate life, advertising, networking, friendship – it is a marketplace where the media and agencies meet, where marketers and agencies meet,” says Srinivasan K Swamy, Chairman, Goafest Organizing Committee, whose endeavour is to “dial up the excitement by expanding the festival”.
Among the new additions this year are rock climbing, zip line, flying fox, traversing and rope-pulling, besides inter-company cricket, football, volleyball and tug-of-war shields, foam dance and aqua zorbing, offering festival delegates plenty of entertainment. However, questions have been raised – mainly by advertisers - about the very judiciousness of the fun element overtaking knowledge content at Goafest, a platform beset by controversy over scam ads and plagiarism last year. “There is a need to re-position Goafest to improve its relevance for the marketing fraternity,” says Anisha Motwani, Director & Chief Marketing Officer, Max Life Insurance, calling for more participation, trust and credibility.
Sanjay Tripathy, Senior EVP - Marketing, Product, Digital & E-Commerce, HDFC Life, wants the organizers to ensure that the schedule is right and that the day is not spent just drinking.
However, Swamy reiterates that they are just offering the delegates choice. “Go whenever you want, do the activity for 10-15 minutes and come back. It is available throughout the day. You may not want to listen to a particular speaker, walk out a bit and come back,” he explains.
‘ALL FESTIVALS OFFER CHOICE’
Arvind Sharma, founding Chairman of Goafest and current President of the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), draws a parallel with Cannes, saying that it could have sessions involving two big speakers at the same time, as well as a brand doing some activity. “Festivals always offer you multiple choices. It is not kindergarten school where you sequence everything,” he asserts.
On marketers not being very excited about the current knowledge content, calling it more fun and entertainment than knowledge, Swamy says, “Honestly, whoever has commented on it has not done so with knowledge of what is being done. We have never had this variety of speakers at Goafest. We have 25 speakers, of them many international ones; nothing different from what we have had in the past. We haven’t shared enough of the content yet, so lack of knowledge is making them say that content is not interesting enough. We have announced only nine speakers in the first round. How can they comment on things that have not been announced?” he asks.
So is Goafest primarily about having fun, gaining gyan or a serious game of one-upmanship in the arena of awards? Recalling the themes of earlier Goafests - ‘May The Right Brain Win’, ‘Survival Of The Freshest’, ‘Ideas Are All Around Us’, ‘Can You Spot One’, ‘Let’s Talk Magic’ and ‘Just What You Unexpected’ - Swamy says the emphasis always seems to have been on ideas and creativity, work and awards: “Most have come to the conclusion that Goafest is all about awards, which it is not. This year, we want to focus on celebration. At a wedding, only the bride and groom are getting married but everybody celebrates, hence we chose the theme ‘Brand Baaja Baaraat’.”
WHAT’S KEEPING THE AGENCIES AWAY?
Why have six top creative agencies – Ogilvy & Mather, McCann Erickson, Leo Burnett, Creativeland Asia, Grey Worldwide and Lowe Lintas & Partners - decided to skip Goafest all at once this year? Besides Lowe Lintas, which never participated, one or another agency has given Goafest a miss over the years. Some agencies have typically not participated for several years. “I have noticed that often, if a particular agency does not have good quality work, they prefer not to enter rather than enter and win very little. There could be other reasons like budgetary constraints, timing, etc. It is also possible that the controversies surrounding Goafest in the past may have influenced this to some extent,” says Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO South Asia, Chairman Posterscope & psLive - Asia Pacific, Dentsu Aegis Network.
Controversy surrounded Goafest 2013. Leo Burnett withdrew its radio spots for Tata Lite from the contest, after which the Awards Governing Council withdrew BBDO India’s ads for DHL and DDB Mudra Group’s work for Electrolux saying they were ‘similar’ to work done by Ogilvy Hongkong and Y&R Sao Paulo respectively. The AGC received hundreds of complaints for the Creative Abbys, and set up a superjury to address the principal complaints. Meanwhile, Lowe Lintas and Ogilvy India held internal award shows to celebrate their own work. According to Agnello Dias, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Taproot India, there were too many personal agendas at Goafest, which may be the reason for the agencies to keep away.
“The agencies have nothing against Goafest per se,” says Swamy. “They’ve had some issues with the way the awards were given. There was a little unhappiness based on that.”
WILL IT BE A LUKEWARM SHOW NOW?
“In fact, it will probably be the best show ever because, for the first time, it has an extra day. There is also a professionally organized rain dance, other activities like beach cricket, on the fun side. The quality of speakers, the seminars and the extra award show should actually make it amongst the better ones. Given the budgetary constraints, maybe the total number of people attending may be slightly less than the past. But Goafest this year will rock,” says Bhasin.
Manish Bhatt, Founder Director, Scarecrow Communications Ltd., however, has reservations: “There are enough new entities, new people, a lot of new digital agencies, a lot of small agencies, a lot of people who would look forward to any gathering, networking, rain dances, seminars, etc. I don’t think it is going to be a bad show, but it will not be as strong as earlier… Stalwarts of the industry are not supporting this with their heart and soul and this has taken its own toll,” he says.
Swamy and Sharma expect the number of participating organizations to be above 200. Participation from Digital, PR and Design agencies is increasing. “These are the future of advertising. If you are looking backward at the definition of advertising yesterday, you will find pieces missing. If you look at the definition of advertising going forward, there is participation from many areas that are going to be very important tomorrow. We have both depth and width of participation in those areas. So, depends on how you choose to look at it and present it. Apart from those who have announced that they are not coming, we are getting a lot of entries from all the agencies that are doing great work across a variety of fields and we think their work deserves to be recognized by the industry,” says Sharma.
According to him, “If you are just looking at designations and titles, it may seem like any other Goafest. But in terms of choices that have been made, it will be the coolest Goafest ever!”
GOAFEST 2014: WHO, WHERE, WHEN…
Goafest is in its 9th year and this is the 7th year that AAAI and The Advertising Club have come together to award the Abbys. The awards have been scheduled over three days, as against two in earlier years:
Day 1 (May 29): Publisher and Media Abbys
Day 2 (May 30): Design, Direct, Promo-Activation, PR, Outdoor, Print Craft, Branded Content and Broadcaster Abbys.
Day 3 (May 31): Interactive Digital, Radio, Print, TV, Integrated Abbys
THE SPEAKERS
For the Knowledge Seminars, the first set of names announced by the Goafest 2014 authorities include:
Preethi Mariappan - Executive Creative Director at Razorfish, Germany;
Melanie Varley- Chief Strategy Officer, Global at MEC;
Norm Johnson- Chief Digital Officer at Mindshare;
Alicia Souza- illustration designer/artist/e-commerce entrepreneur;
Shravan Kumaran and Sanjay Kumaran- the youngest app developers in India;
All India Bakchod (AIB) - Co-founded by comedians Gursimran Khamba and Tanmay Bhat;
Devdutt Pattanaik, Mythologist, Author, Leadership expert;
DK Hema & Hema Hari, Founders, BharathGyan.
More speakers are to be announced shortly.
NEW CATEGORIES INTRODUCED:
Promo-Activation, PR, Broadcaster and Publisher Abbys As in earlier years, Grand Prix can be awarded for Film, Print, Radio, Outdoor, Design, Interactive Digital, Direct, Media and Integrated campaigns.
THEMES OVER THE YEARS
2006 Welcome to advillage
2007 Ideas
2008 Goaface
2009 May the right brain win
2010 Survival of the freshest
2011 Ideas are all around us. Can you spot one?
2012 Let’s talk magic
2013 Just what you unexpected
2014 Brand Baaja Baaraat
(Transcription credit: Simran Sabherwal, Henna Achhpal and Saloni Dutta)
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