Takeaways from GoaFest 2010: Suman Srivastava

The second session of Day 3 at GoaFest 2009 saw George Michaelides, Global Leader (Invention) at Mindshare, conduct a session in which he stressed on the ‘new creativity’, which, according to him, was the need of the hour for advertising agencies.

Michaelides explained that advertising had always been seen as one aspect of marketing communications, but now it needed to broaden its definition. “It’s not about advertising. Rather, it is about generating talkability for your brands,” he said, adding, “If that approach is adopted, it will act as an acid test of new creativity.”

Elaborating further, he said, “The new creativity has to be the language of the business in the future.”

Referring to the contemporary marketing arena, he said that the connectivity from one person to the other was resulting in mass awareness, typically like a viral on the Internet. A classic example of this would be thousands of people sharing information and at the same time disseminating it as well, be it on the web or any other platform.

On the opportunities in India, Michaelides said, “India has been a country that offers great opportunities, and the history suggests that. Creativity, too, is seen to be rising here. With diverse cultures, it becomes challenging to addresses marketing problems. Also, there is a certain amount of chaos, where the rich people live side by side with the poor.”

He further said, “I think India is at that kind of point where there are young people who understand technology, and out of all this buzz, there are new things that come.”

Facebook, Twitter, Orkut and many other social media platforms have become a way of life for many consumers in India. Sharing information with friends and also strangers has become the new reality. How can brand managers and advertising agencies cash in on this growing segment? Can this very-evident opportunity in the media world be monetised? Can it become the centre of digital communications? How does one measure social media?

All these questions and more were addressed at a panel discussion on Social Media, which was part of Knowledge and Learning Seminar on Day 3 at GoaFest 2010. The session, which was moderated by Eric Ashok Ledergerber, Founder, hub.in|dia, had among its panelists Patrick Liotard-Vogt, chairman, ASW.com; Kiruba Shankar, well-known blogger and CEO of Business Blogging Pvt Ltd; Gaurav Mishra, CEO, 2020 Social; and Vishal Gondal, CEO & Founder, Indiagames Ltd.

Vishal Gondal started off the session by explaining how the whole media space was reinvented with the evolution of social media. “We are moving towards participative media, where the ballgame of engagement has change dramatically,” he noted.

Gondal further said that with mobile coming into the picture, and with its convergence with social media, interaction amongst consumers had increased irrespective of their locations. “Social is not just another website. Rather, it is a medium that can transform a brand in the sense how the consumers look at it,” he explained.

According to Gaurav Mishra, “There is a way advertising works – get 20,000 people listening to you, do a campaign and then move on to the other campaign – having the consumers hooked on to you on an on-going basis.”

Mishra further went on to explain the importance to scale up passion. He said, “Select a big lifestyle, interest or cause. Ignite passion, build a focused community around it, and scale it by leveraging with the social media.”

Explaining the role of the small communities within the social media space, Patrick Liotard-Vogt said, “An online community with 61 members and present in 200 countries will target specific sort of social media users – could be the elite class. Such small communities are stronger than Facebook or Twitter in terms of the offline activations.”

He further said, “Facebook is for keeping in touch with your people and small world is about meeting people offline.”

At this point, Kiruba Shankar asked, “How many of us go beyond Facebook or Twitter? If this continues, there is no way we can help social media to grow.”

On the advertising front, Gondal noted that a majority of Facebook revenue came from gaming.

Talking about the Indian Premier League, Gondal said, “Consumers are spending an average of Rs 900 on IPL. These people are active on the Internet, and we haven’t done enough to monetise this opportunity.” On the gaming front, he said, “None of our games are launched without social connect, or through the mobile support. 3G will get in many more users.”

Taking the discussion to another level, Gaurav Mishra asked, “Why is social media important at all? The answer is: It is not social media that is important. Perhaps it is social, which is important. How can I do more social?”

Liotard-Vogt pointed out, “95 per cent of Indian websites are financed through advertising. Advertising is not relevant – too much of irrelevant information is floating around. The future lies in target marketing.”

On the measurement front, Mishra explained that India was terrible in measuring the Internet. “All we measure is how much we spend in terms of advertising or public relations. If you can measure offline, you can also measure online,” he said.

Gondal concluded by saying, “People need to understand that social media is very personal. So, if I am tweeting, I expect people to reply. As a company, you need to need to ensure that all your people have a Twitter account. It has to be managed by the brand manager, you cannot outsource that.”

The final day of GoaFest 2010 ended on a high note for Ogilvy India with the agency bagging the maximum metals at the Creative Abby Awards – 43 to be precise (three Golds, nine Silvers and 30 Bronzes). The agency also bagged the Grand Prix in the Integrated category for Vodafone ZooZoos. Nirvana Films, too, took home the Grand Prix for Vodafone ZooZoos. Mudra Group secured the second position with a total of 33 metals, including four Golds, 12 Silvers and 16 Bronzes, followed by Publicis Communication, which bagged a total of 22 metals (two Golds, six Silvers and 14 Bronzes).

JWT India had a total of 12 metals – two Silvers and 10 Bronzes, followed by Leo Burnett India, which had three Silvers and eight Bronzes. Creativeland Asia bagged a total of 10 metals comprising one Gold, two Silvers and seven Bronzes. Bates 141 metal tally included one Gold, two Silvers and five Bronzes. Rediffusion Y&R, Taproot India and Cheil Communications all bagged five metals each.

Under the Film Craft category, Nirvana Films had a total of 12 metals – four Golds, three Silvers and four Bronzes. Corcoise Films took home a Gold, five Silvers and one Bronze, while Footcandles won two Silvers and four Bronzes.

Ogilvy & Mather, which had the highest metal tally, won three Golds for their work on Vodafone ZooZoos and The Economist under the Film Single, Integrated and Direct categories.

Mudra bagged five Golds for their work on Srujan, The Economic Times, Incredible Taj and Ministry of Tourism under the categories of Print Single, Direct, Out of Home and Print Craft.

Publicis Communication won two Golds in the Film Craft category, sub-categories of Music Score and Animation, for their work on Rotaract Club of Mumbai.

Creativeland Asia bagged a Gold for the work doe for client Café Coffee Day in the Out of Home category, while Bates 141 took home a Gold for its work on India Book Distribution in the Direct category.

Nirvana Films, which bagged the Grand Prix for its work on Vodafone ZooZoos, also took home four Golds – one for Vodafone ZooZoos, two for Frooti and one for Bajaj in the Film Craft category.

Corcoise Films won a Gold for the work done for Max NewYork, also in the Film Craft category.

Metal Tally:

The country’s top advertising honchos speak about their expectations from the Media Abby Awards that would be presented on Day 2 of GoaFest 2010.

Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman & National Creative Director - Ogilvy & Mather India and South Asia:

Fair judging, good results and great motivation. Besides this, media is a part of life and affects people in making an effective choice and in a right fashion. In all, I hope to see great creativity shine at the Media Abbys.

Mahesh Chauhan, Group CEO, Rediffusion Y&R:

The media game has changed over the past 4-5 years. Though there is a revolution that is spotted in terms of the quality of work, it is still early stages for the spark to emanate full-scale. I am looking forward to attending the Media Abby awards night with full gusto.

Subhash Kamat, Managing Partner, BBH India:

I really want to see a complete new innovation in the media space, especially in mediums like OOH and Activations as these are the mediums that are becoming important in today’s media space. Taking this forward, what is needed today is for the media business to create a benchmark in innovated branded content.

Sonal Dabral, Chairman, India & Regional Executive Creative Director, Bates 141:

I have been looking forward to the works from the media agencies. There are so many mediums like channels, magazines and newspapers and with the whole plethora out there, I expect more innovation and great campaign ideas taking root, thereby making this space even more interesting.

Ambi Parameswaran, CEO, DraftFCB+Ulka, Mumbai:

I expect tough competition this time at the Media Abbys. It seems that the quality of work that has entered this year is really good, and we shall see the best picking up the awards. As for my expectations, I think Lodestar Universal has done some good work on Tata Docomo, and I expect some metals going their way.

Ashish Bhasin, Chairman India & CEO South East Asia, Aegis Media and Director Posterscope – APAC:

What I am looking forward to from the Media Abby awards this year is the different kind of works coming from the routine mediums. Though I am looking forward to seeing winners from diverse categories, my focus will be on the works that will be from Digital and OOH, the mediums that need to occupy centrestage at the event now.

Josy Paul, Chairman and NCD, BBDO India:

I guess this year’s Media Abby will open my mind to new possibilities in branded content. And show us how we can create social movements using integrated media.

Arvind Sharma, Chairman and CEO, Leo Burnett:

Rahul Sengupta, NCD, TBWA/India:

When there is some kind of ground-breaking work… there are times that there are no industry examples that such work would be ever done… So there is a task or challenge that to convince the client to sell such works relating to creativity.

Satbir Singh, CCO, Euro RSCG:

There are so many campaigns that are running and I would say that there are exceptional works and works that are below average. So, if asking that if it’s a challenge to sell creative ideas to the client, my answer is yes or no. There are many examples of commercials that are on air, which in my mind, should not have been approved by the clients. And on the other side there are great ideas, which are approved by the client.

KV Sridhar, NCD, Leo Burnett:

I don’t believe that clients do not buy great creative ideas. Most of them do approve good ideas, provided we solve their problems. On the other hand, I feel that the agencies aren’t really producing ideas that are high on creativity.

KS Chakravarthy, DraftFCB+Ulka:

Agencies often end up on the winning side by convincing the clients about the ideas they come up with. Advertisers understand creativity, and at times, if they feel that a mass idea is not convincing enough, we ask them to go take them home. All in all, it’s not a challenge to sell ideas to clients. Also, it depends on the relationship you share with them.

Madan Mohan, EVP – Publicis India:

I think clients are very open to creativity, but many a times the benchmarks of creativity are different, hence it does become a challenge. One way is to make them recognise the merit of the idea and the benefit that they would reap.

Arijit Ray, EVP & Head Mumbai, Mudra:

There are clients who believe in creative communication solutions. Sometimes it happens that some clients equate each communication with a host of communications available to just one solution. So, for agencies it then becomes a challenge for giving the client the whole package of a 360-degree approach.

Rahul Jauhari, National Head of Creative, Pickle Advertising:

There have been inventions around new media avenues in today’s age. However, the clients are just focusing on more of traditional media and thus convincing the client to utilise and create communication towards new mediums is a task. It’s a challenge thus to convince the client to create communication towards the ever changing media avenues.

I am very pleased with the way the Media Abbys have gone so far. 484 entries as against 417 last year, 51 judges in Round 1 as against 35 judges last year, 14 judges in Round 2 as against eight judges last year… but these are merely statistics. The quality of entries that have been submitted this year is truly very good and inspirational. I will not single out any specific entry – as Jury Chairman, I would be giving the game away and ET will feel cheated that probably there is a simpler way of getting the results out. However, the work in some categories like Mixed Media (our answer to Integrated) is world class.

Further, we have made immense progress in the categories of Digital and Internet. I was judging at Cannes in 2008 and was disappointed that our quality of work in the Digital category was way behind international standards, but now I can proudly state that we are fast catching up. Unfortunately, TV, which was also the largest category, saw some uninspiring work. The jury was left wondering whether the work was not up to the mark or was it that we had seen it all and, therefore, were left unmoved.

It is significant to mention that all the winners you will see and almost all the work entered, had scale and canvas, was for well known brands and was recognised by one and all.

The other key point is that the presentation boards and videos have improved dramatically. One has already got used to high quality presentations at the Emvies, but now this shows that not only are we good at ideas and strategy, but also execution and presentation.

However, the big news of the Media Abbys 2010 was that all media agencies participated. The spirit was evident when some agencies sent in a few entries unmindful of the fact that they may not win anything (in fact some of them did go on to win). It was hearting to note that lack of ‘winability’ was not a criteria in most minds.

The large turnout of judges at both rounds and the diligent scrutiny and scoring showed that the focus was on judging the best winners and nothing else.

Finally, I am proud to be part of the media industry – we compete fiercely, but are part of a ‘Biradiri’; we all participate in the awards not caring a damn whether we have any winners or not, we see no scams or even if we do so the judging process is designed to eliminate such work. We have no controversies, no leaked awards (at least till the time I write this piece) and our show is on – First Day. First Show.

Enjoy.

(Shashi Sinha is Chairman, Media Abbys, GoaFest 2010 and CEO India, Lodestar Universal Media.)