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The GoaFest this year is all set to take place with the same pizzazz at the Cavelossim Beach, Goa, on April 2-4. O&M and McCann Erickson India have finally decided to participate in the event. Till now, the two agencies were undecided about their participation at the festival, largely due to cost cutting measures.
O&M’s Piyush Pandey declared the agency’s decision to take part in the festival as an effort towards showing industry togetherness. In a conversation with afaqs!, Prasoon Joshi, executive chairperson, McCann World Group India and regional creative director, McCann Asia Pacific, confirms that McCann too, will participate in the fest, although in a “token capacity”.
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Joshi reveals that McCann will send in a nominal number of entries (a drastic cut from last year) and very few chosen delegates to partake in the event. Last year, about 75 delegates from McCann had participated, but this number is likely to be reduced to a handful this year.
Joshi reasons, “Times are bad and instead of sacking people, we at McCann have decided not to send our people to any festivals globally, nor participate in these. Our participation at GoaFest is more of a token one, as our extension towards industry solidarity.”
Quite aptly, the theme for GoaFest 2009 is ‘This is too good a recession to waste’. Colvyn Harris, chairperson, GoaFest and chief executive officer, JWT India, shares details about this year’s event. He reveals that the Industry and Leadership Conclave will be held on April 2, where media owners, brand marketers and CEOs will discuss and debate the theme.
The focus this year is the knowledge and learning seminars. Sir John Hegarty, chairperson and worldwide creative director, BBH; Bob Scarpelli, chairperson and chief creative officer, DDB Worldwide; and Jean Marie Dru, chairperson, TBWA Worldwide will be a part of the seminars. A few more experts are expected to confirm their presence soon. The knowledge and learning seminars will be held on April 3-4.
Measures have been taken to ensure that the slowdown in India and the recession in the rest of the world do not affect the turnout at the advertising festival this year.
Registrations open on March 1 and will close on March 25. The registration entry fee this year has been dropped to Rs 4,500 for delegates under the age of 30 and Rs 9,000 for others. Travel, stay and other logistics will have to be worked out by the agencies. Registrations can be done on www.goafest.com. Last year, nearly 3,000 delegates attended the event at the beach in Goa and this year, too, the committee is expecting a similar number.
Sponsors for the festivals haven’t been announced, though Harris confirms that about seven-eight sponsors have signed on.
An Abby for Media as well
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Unlike last year, this year the media awards will be called the Media Abbys. Shashi Sinha, co-chairperson, GoaFest Committee, says, “The first round of judging will involve short listing the entries and the second round of judging will be carried out by the agency heads.” Sinha expects about 400 entries for the Media Abbys this year. The Media Abbys will be held on April 3 in 13 categories.
“The Media Abbys sets the stage for a design, digital and craft Abby in the future,” says Madhukar Kamath, president, AAAI and managing director and chief executive officer, Mudra Group.
Entries can be submitted through forms available on the website of the Ad Club of Bombay, AAAI and the GoaFest official website.
Creative Abby
Certain changes have come about in the categories this year. Design as a new category will be included from this year onward. Individuals and agencies can send in their entries in this category, which has four sub-categories. In the Craft category, Film Craft is open only to production houses. In the Print Craft sub-category, only individuals can enter and a few new sub-categories such as Typography and Copywriting have been added. The other 14 categories remain the same.
Rightfully yours
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The creative thought this year is ‘May the Right Brain Win’, with the photo of an animated right side of the brain next to it. The campaign has been created by JWT. The earlier logo, which was created by Contract (the agency which worked on the campaign last year), has been retained and so is the yellow and black colour combination. This is because the team at JWT wants to create a brand recall with that logo and hopes that in the future, too, the same logo will be used.
This year, the focus is on knowledge and learning, hence the take on the ‘right brain’. As is known, a highly developed right side of the human brain is responsible for a creative bent of mind, while a developed left side makes one more logical.
Again, the ‘right’ brained ones, pun intended, will walk away with the awards at the Indian advertising festival.
A teaser campaign already doing the rounds has different brain sizes denoting each department of an agency. E-mails will be sent on an hourly basis to agencies, with one brain type at a time, to finally reveal what it is about.
Next week, the films surrounding the creative idea will also be revealed. Two films are said be to ready. There are plans to incorporate the idea of the right brain into the venue and merchandise such as shirts, caps and bags.
The team that created the campaign includes Tista Sen, senior vice-president and executive creative director; Kainaz Karmakar and Harshad Rajadhyaksha, both senior VPs and senior creative directors, along with Pallavi Chakravarti and Shashank Jha. The illustrations were done by Sameer Kulavoor.
Steps have been taken to avoid spam entries. These include decisions such as making provisions to ensure that ads made for and paid for by genuine clients and legitimately released are accepted as entries.
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