With the 12th edition of Goafest just round the corner, The Ad Club and AAAI have come out with a new campaign, ‘Gods of Advertising’, which calls upon the advertising fraternity to turn up in full force and witness the many Gods of advertising in action
By Neeta Nair
The Ad Club and The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) are clearly taking no chances to ensure the sun shines brightly on India’s biggest festival of creativity, by promptly invoking the Gods ahead of the 12th edition of the Goafest. FCB Ulka has fused advertising verticals with the names of Greek Gods to create the ‘Gods of Advertising’ campaign urging the industry to not give Goafest a miss.
Talking about the Grecian flavour to the campaign this year, Mahendra Bhagat, NCD, South, FCB Ulka says, “The Ad Club wanted to make a shift from portraying Goafest just as a fun place to be in. The kind of advertising biggies and speakers who share their insights at the Goafest are unmatched, which makes it an enriching experience for everyone present. For the younger lot these speakers are definitely their heroes, their Gods. That’s where we got our idea from.”
At the moment the agency has released three creatives portraying the God of Art Direction as Mac’ximus, Account Management as Deadlinus and Planning as Jargonea. FCB Ulka is currently designing two more characters on media planning and copywriting which will be out soon.
Ashish Bhasin, Chairman Goafest 2017 and Vice President AAAI says, “We had requested FCB Ulka to put together a campaign for the Goafest while Scarecrow is handling the promotions for the Abby’s. And as soon as the FCB team presented the Gods of Advertising campaign I took an immediate liking to it because it very well captured the essence of the largest festival of advertising in India. After all we do have many Gods of advertising at the Goafest who the attendees look up to and want to emulate.”
Last year we did not see an over-arching Goafest campaign and only an Abby’s specific one which highlighted the desiness of the awards. Ad-landers were seen sporting t-shirts with taglines like ‘I prefer a vada pav over a burger – That’s why Abby’s, I speak in English but think in Hindi etc at the fest. Explaining why the largely western concept of Greek Gods is an ideal fit for the Goafest, Bhagat says, “On most of my visits to Goa, I have noticed the frescos at the old churches. The concept may be western but when an Indian artist tries to depict that concept, it adds a level of Indianness to it. That’s what we tried to capture. We tried to retain the rawness in art and people love the deliberate unfinished look we have given to the ads.”
The Goafest website is sporting the new look and feel of Gods of Advertising theme and FCB Ulka has created some 20 odd mailers promoting this concept. They are also creating t-shirts, bags etc with the unique characters.
In the year 2016, the Advertising triumvirate of Piyush Pandey, Prasoon Joshi and R Balki returned to the Goafest after a gap of several years. One needs to wait and watch to see what punches the Goafest Organising Committee decides to pack in this year. But for starters the ‘Gods’ seem to be doing their job of getting the desired response from the ad-landers pretty well, if the Twitter page of the Ad Club and FCB Ulka are anything to go by.
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neeta.nair@exchange4media.com
