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The Festival of Media Awards 2010 was announced at a ceremony in Valencia on April 20, 2010. The Awards were spread across the global media agency networks, with the likes of Havas, MediaCom, VivaKi and OMD winning Jury Awards. Indian agencies won no awards at the Festival this year. However, MediaCom India’s work for Gillette – ‘To Shave or Not to Shave’ – was nominated across four categories, and won itself two High Recommendations – in the Best Consumer Driven Campaign and the Effectiveness Award.

Mindshare India’s work on Lux Perfect Bride received one High Recommendation at the Festival in the Best Use of Content category.

Some of the other Indian entries that had made it to the shortlist included Story Campaign from Publicis India, Amul’s Tasty Musical Journey from Lodestar Universal, and the Power of Nano Sized, also from Lodestar Universal.

Another highlight was Jack Klues, Managing Partner, VivaKi being honoured with the Media Professional of the Year. Klues is the first person to receive this Award.

MediaCom India was shortlisted in the Agency of the Year category, and MediaCom overall won the Network of the Year Award.

The People’s Award, which allowed planners and strategists to select their favourite work from all the shortlisted campaigns before the Festival delegates voted their winner from the top five, went to ‘It Doesn’t have to Happen’ – a campaign against knife-related crimes, which was entered by Manning Gottlieb OMD UK.

The President of the Festival of Media Awards jury this year was given the authority to make one additional Award to recognise a brand or agency that made a mark throughout the judging process. This special Award was given to Havas Media in recognition of the consistent quality of the work submitted for the Festival of Media Awards and its agencies’ commitment to providing innovation and service across a wide range of countries and marketing challenges.

Winning agencies in the campaign categories were Farfar/ Isobar; Starcom, Australia and Norway; OMD, Singapore, UK and US; Havas Media, Mexico and UK; and MediaCom, UK and US.

The Festival of Media 2010 did keep the best for last. Kester Fielding, Global Media Procurement Director, Diageo, touched on some of the issues that have been discussed only in closed conversations on the media service brands business, and impact the way forward for the industry. Fielding was candid in stating his views on media agencies and what the areas of focus for them should be.

He started off his address stating: “We believe media has value.” He further said that even in the past, there had been discussions on how parts of media could be changed for the better. “We see communications in a holistic fashion, and not as silos. Today, there are many options for any communication route, and when there are more options, there is more complexity,” he added. Explaining more on this, Fielding admitted that price was important, and everyone tried to get the best deals, which was all not just cost focussed. He said, “Inflation is not a good thing and where we can get a better deal, we will.”

Speaking on the supplier selection criteria, he listed quality and assurance of service as pre-requisites for working with any media service brand; the differentiators were innovation, cost and then the kind of service. Fielding explained the global procurement strategy for an advertiser like Diageo, where at the core were attributes such as Assure, Create and Protect, and aspects such as People & Culture and Aligned Metrics formed the outer layer of the structure.

At a point, he asked the audience to vote on where they thought media inventory fit in the communication structure, and where media agencies fit. While the audience vote was skewed towards the strategic category, Fielding explained that unless things changed drastically, media service brands would be in the leverage or acquisition category. Media owners had a better chance of being in the strategic category.

He then asked, “Have media agencies equipped and evolved themselves like media owners have?” He added that the future health of the media agency industry was the ability to grasp the opportunity that was in working together. Media agencies have to find a way of reinventing themselves. Some attributes media agency should were to understand and have empathy, to respect, to have trust and candour and have positive intent in what they were doing. He said, “How can media agencies better communicate to clients that they are working in their best interests? How can they work together rather than compete over rates?”

Media service brands had to focus on creating their future. He said, “Success is to be able to come together and walk the talk on delivering value.” When asked whether it was fair for clients to go on a pitching spree as soon as the market showed downturn, Fielding said, “I didn’t hear anyone grumble in 2001 and 2002 when high rates were paid.” He thought there was merit in moving away from the commission model of remuneration, since it was difficult to motivate agencies to save when they made commission on the basis of the amount that the client spent.

He reckoned that media agencies had better relations with media owners, and hence, were better placed to work on new forms of communication like branded content. Fielding asserted the importance of integrated communication and said that today that was much of a problem for media agencies as it was for clients, and the onus of being able to grow through initiatives such as these was on both clients and agencies.

Fielding stated that media agencies understood the communication industry and the media market, but the problem was in the fact that their perception had not changed. They were still having the same conversations that they did a decade back, and it was about time that changed.

Many conferences, including the Festival of Media, deliberate on brands from the FMCG or automobile or consumer durables sectors and their brand stories. In this session, the focus was on nation brand building. MPG’s Global CEO, Maria Luisa Francoli, was the opening speaker, who cited some top-line findings of Nation Branding Index. Francoli was speaking on how countries communicated, differentiated and symbolised the nation’s identity, and how a nation’s identity played a vital role in areas such as tourism, exports, governance, investment and immigration to the country and culture and heritage. These, she said, were both the goals and the key drivers of nation brand building.

She explained to the audience how despite its power in the globe, the US was not among the top 10 in 2005, according to the Nation Branding Index Quarter 2, 2005. From there, the US saw a jump up and was on the No. 1 spot in 2009. She noted that one of the reasons that could explain this was the unpopularity of George W Bush and then the election of Barack Obama and how many associated that with changes in the US to be a friendlier nation.

Francoli had set the stage for the next speaker – Turespana’s Enrique Ruiz de Lera. Enrique spoke of Spain’s initiatives to become a leader in nation branding. He took the audience through the efforts of the country in this direction, where back in 1984, Spain was the first country to get a logo called Miro Sun, which today had 73 per cent recognition in Europe. The effort now was to make that a worldwide brand. Amongst the various offices that Instituto de Turismo de España (Turespaña) opened in 2009, Mumbai was one, making the company available in 33 countries.

Enrique’s target included being a leader, being global, being not different but unique, being aspirational, emotional and premium. He stated that more than conventional media was required to achieve these targets and the unique proposition that Spain wanted to associate with was ‘lifestyle’. He said, “Perhaps two of the biggest contributions from Spain to the world has been Fiesta and Siesta, and we undertook a brand campaign – ‘I need Spain’ – that focussed on all such aspect that made being in Spain, unique.”

The next speaker, Juan Valdez Cafe’s Luis Fernando Samper, spoke on Columbian coffee and showed more on the various marketing initiatives that the company had taken to state that coffee from Columbia was superior to Brazil and others, where the company’s marketing shared with the audience the making of the coffee to its marketing.

Maarten L Albarda, too, had a mad story to tell about his journey to Festival of Media, which apart from including the luggage coming in 24 hours after he did, also meant working overnight on an elongated presentation since session partner, OMD’s Global CEO, Mainardo de Nardis, was unable to make it to the event despite trying till “the very end”.

Albarda, the VP, Global Connections, Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABInBev) – the company that owns beer brands such as Budweiser, Budlight, Becks and Stella Artois, was till recently the Worldwide Director, Media and Communication Innovation, Coca-Cola Company. He began his presentation by stating that from representing a brand that was over a century old, he was now representing a brand, which was still undergoing transitional process after the various consolidations in the beer market, the merger of Anheuser-Busch and InBev being one of them.

The marketing focus at ABInBev is very ‘young’. The company’s philosophy revolved around three key factors – Dream, People and Culture. But the company has now developed a fourth muscle – marketing muscle. He said, “It is Brand Equity today and top-line growth tomorrow. We link means with results, so brand connection is also about measurement.”

The move to focus on marketing has been serious enough for the company to make its senior management undertake a marketing course that was developed together with the Kellogg’s Business School. Albarda spoke further on what the thoughts behind this marketing exercise were.

Marketing, Integration and Agency Relation

Beginning with the role between the ABInBev and agency, he pointed out, “We lead the communication process and they are an integral part of it. We give the brief, they develop the strategy, we direct and they execute, they are essentially partners in ensuring that we reach where we see ourselves in the future.”

Taking the audience through the various markets where AbInBev brands have presence in, he stated that brand consistency was the most important amongst the various integrated markets. He said, “We have aligned brand essence across all internal stakeholders and agencies. And all communication is strongly rooted in brand essence, both horizontal and vertical.” This meant getting key agencies on the table at the same time, briefing them together. He reckoned that the brand team was the orchestrator of all branding exercises.

He then spoke about building the connection planning house, which had ‘Most Effective’ right on top of the triangle, followed by ‘Lowest Cost’ and ‘Transparent Results’ on either side. Albarda spoke extensively on these brand building models and on capability building, which included a marketing restructure within the company. He then spoke on the scale, reach and scope that they hoped to derive from this exercise and then cited examples of marketing initiatives that the company had done across various platforms, including the FIFA World Cup Integration. He said, “FIFA World Cup is the single most important marketing asset for ABInBev. We have planned many things around the 2010 World Cup that includes things like Bud House, Bud Cup and so on. We are looking at maximum reach through digital platforms. For us, it is to take our local brands on the global FIFA platform.”

The key metrics that ABInBev has put together for its marketing include share increase, brand performance tracker, media value, digital activation, tailor-made surveys and sales increase.

Albarda ended his presentation with an addition to pet peeves from last year, and said, “Let’s stop talking about digital or interactive or PR or sponsorship as if it were some of kind of a mythical separate piece. We have not yet really understood the full impact of these various pieces of communication exercise, and a company like ABInBev is probably in its diapers on the marketing route.”

When asked which stage that left Coke in, Albarda said, “Coke is like Madonna, always reinventing itself and forever young.”

Albarda concluded that it was essential for all pieces of marketing to work together since a problem to a PR person, or a digital professional would attract a solution that was PR or digital. Quoting Abraham Maslow, he said, “‘To a person with a hammer, every problem is a nail’. The collective view of a problem and then coming to a solution is the key today.”

Charlie Crowe, CEO, C Squared, referred to the situation that the Festival of Media found itself in due to flight cancellations in Europe as “quite a lesson in crisis management”. He said, “We had a delegate who drove up to Valencia in a minivan, and there was someone who travelled across the world staying with family at various points to get here!”

Crowe spoke further on the rationale behind Festival of Media, stating that no other international festival or event covered media in the way that it should be and that was where the future of advertising and media was. He said, “It is easy to forget that Google is now challenging China. It is easy to forget that games can have larger box office opening figures than movies and that CMOs are questioning marketing department’s structure and where it was all headed.”

He spoke briefly on the media scene, saying, “We are also on the cusp of another interesting change if you see the number of media pitches for the last 12 months. In all, it has been an interesting year. With the mobile and iPad, there are conversations on how that would affect our business and the way we communicate.”

Crowe set the tone of discussion for the day. Many sessions saw one of the original number of speakers and the festival had to naturally cut down from parallel running sessions to a single one at a time. The conversations in breaks were still dominated by airports that were working and flights that many were hopeful would be restored soon.

Speakers extended full support to the festival organisers, with a few even agreeing to speak on two panels. Patience Wheatcroft, Editor-in-Chief, Europe, Wall Street Journal, moderated all the sessions of the day and ensured that the festival conversations were interactive and engaging.

Some of the speakers on Day Two include Mike Cooper, Global CEO, PHD; AdMob’s Russell Buckley; Quentin George, Chief Digital Officer, MediaBrands; Gian Fulgoni, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder, comScore; Hernan Sanchez Neira, CEO, Havas Media Intelligence; Doug Scott, President, Ogilvy Entertainment; Andrew Sibley, Head of Brand and Advertising, Cisco; and Kester Fielding, Global Media Procurement Director, Diageo.

ViVaki’s Managing Partner Jack Klues had a tough job at hand. The session that would have otherwise seen the participation of ViVaki media service brand Starcom Worldwide’s client Coca-Cola and Klues, was left for Klues alone to handle. Scott McCune, VP, Integrated Marketing, The Coca-Cola Company, was unable to make it to Valencia for the event.

And it was up to Klues to share the marketing experiences and examples that The Coca-Cola Company had undertaken. For Coca-Cola, the base of the challenge, interestingly, was its popularity. The global awareness and ubiquity of the brand was more of its problem than its triumph. Coca-Cola Company was of the opinion that the brand had become inward looking and felt that it had to break through the clutter that was associated with the brand.

The objective for the brand was to move from perpetual to preferred, from incessant to irreplaceable and from popular to beloved. Coca-Cola has always focussed on young adults as part of its core target audience, and the objective of the company’s marketing strategy was to actively get this TG in its fold. The brand set on a marketing exercise ‘looking for love’. It was looking for a route that would change attitude in a way that could shape brand value.

The Coca-Cola Vision 2020 involved premier employment, global sustainability, to be preferred and trusted and above all, to have 3 billion servings a day. This made place for the insights, content and connection to be some of the key strands of the new DNA of the Coca-Cola way of marketing.

Coca-Cola’s plan had factors like brand strategy, brand and portfolio plans, market place execution at the centre of it. The focus was on insights and passions that would lead to experiences, through relevant content, which could in turn create love for the brand. And for all this, Coca-Cola was well aware that it needed partners. This was where Starcom Worldwide, and other agencies, including events agency Ignition, came in play.

Realigning agency structure to serve client needs

The agency and client relation eventually boils down to that. Starcom Worldwide had realigned its structure to focus on human passions, and this realignment came in play when Coca-Cola Company was in pursuit of brand love. Klues informed that Starcom’s response to Coca-Cola 2020 challenge was a plan that blended old and new media. Klues cited a series of examples to substantiate his point.

One of the first cases shown was of Coca-Cola’s work done during the Chinese New Year of 2009, when, based on the deep emotional passion that the Chinese have for the New Year, Coca-Cola came with the concept of ‘First Coke of the Year’. The marketing activity generated content, including earned and paid content, that engaged a large number of the audience and created unique consumer experience with the Coca-Cola brand.

Another example was of Coca-Cola’s happiness platform, where the idea was born from television, and taken to unexpected new types of engagement. Starcom Wordwide’s re-engineering as a human network allowed the agency to play the role of a hybrid idea facilitator. The approach was media agnostic, enabling fresh and unexpected touch points. There also was a need of a new age business partner for this initiative and the answer was in Microsoft. Coca-Cola partnered with Microsoft for the online film, and also a co-branded microsite for details of the film. Special editorial promos were also made on MSN for all the phases of the activity.

Demonstrating what the true meaning of a global initiative is, Klues also spoke about Coca-Cola Company’s FIFA World Cup initiative, of the Trophy Tour.

Klues said, “Today, emotional relationships have become important. The need is to connect with people through passions and to build brand love. Content and experience are the most potent currency.”

He ended by saying, “Going forward, the game would be about mining new sources of data and engaging people in a contextually relevant manner. We need to reframe relationships with media owners and leverage them into inspire new and breakthrough content.”