GoaFest: A rendezvous with the biggies of advertising

For young copy trainees and illustrators, the idols of advertising are soon going to step out of textbooks and photographs. At the AAAI GoaFest, to be held on April 20 and 21, there’s a lot in store for young, aspiring ad folk.

For one, GoaFest has organised formal panel discussions involving speakers of stature, international as well as Indian, from the fields of advertising, media and marketing. These creative brains will address issues in the industry and discuss outstanding pieces of creative work with a global perspective. The panel discussions will be held in the Centrum, Cavelossim Beach, Goa, which can hold over 1,000 people. The discussions will be moderated by Neeraj Nayar, who organised the Cannes festival for eight years and is renowned in the international advertising world.

Each speaker will conduct informal sessions on the beach (most likely in shacks), inviting groups of youngsters to take part in creative activities. These icons of Indian advertising have been given the freedom by AAAI to conduct the workshop in their individualistic styles, in an effort to impart knowledge to these youngsters in a fun-filled way.

For each speaker, the workshop means something different. While for Deshpande it is an “excellent way of encouraging young talent”, Paul of JWT feels that this platform allows for two-way learning. “We will also get to tap fresh thinking, and learn about new media and technologies from the youth,” he says.

Pops has a different agenda. He will conduct his workshop in an unconventional way. He plans on first setting a creative assignment to his group, and then using it to discuss the nuances of creativity. “This ensures there is an interactive dialogue, and not just a monologue,” he says. On a lighter note, he touts these workshops as “fun-filled, educative sessions with senior citizens”.

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