Time to go ad mad as four-day fair kicks off

The biennial advertising congress, Ad Asia, kicked off at the Taj Palace in New Delhi on Monday. India is playing host to close to 1,200 delegates from 25 countries in the capital for four days of learning and fun.

India has laid out the red carpet for the second time in eight years. The last edition, held at Jaipur in 2003, was a grand success, attended by nearly 1,000 delegates.

Around 50 speakers drawn from the fields of advertising, media, marketing and management will speak on a range of subjects such as ‘Game Changers’, ‘Creative Asia’, ‘Decoding the New-Age Consumer’ and ‘Future of Management’.

There will be some 20 sessions in all, from November 1 to 3, the main days of the congress. Key speakers to watch out for include PepsiCo chairperson and chief executive officer, Indra Nooyi; David Droga, founder & chairman of creative hotshop Droga5, and Joseph Tripodi, executive vice-president & chief marketing and commercial officer, The Coca-Cola Company. Also on the list are Harish Manwani, chief operating officer, Unilever, and Bob O’Leary, managing director and head of global marketing, consumer, Citi.

Besides the advertising and marketing top guns, the organising committee has invited speakers from the technology world such as Nikesh Arora, senior vice-president and chief business officer, Google; Arvind Rajan, managing director & vice-president, Asia Pacific & Japan, LinkedIn; and Ravi Swaminathan, managing director & regional vice-president (sales & marketing), AMD, South Asia.

At a time when issues pertaining to graft have taken centre stage in India and across the world, the organising committee has invited speakers such as Duncan Goose, founder and managing director, Global Ethics Ltd, and Swami Sukhabodhananda, founder chairman of the Bangalore-based Prasanna Trust.

“It was important we touched upon various issues,” says Madhukar Kamath, chairman of the 2011 organising committee, “if the congress had to be intellectually stimulating.”

The entertainment value has not been ignored, with lunches and dinners in specially created sets depicting Indian royalty and the streets of Delhi planned over the four days. Vietnam will host a Vietnamese evening to highlight its culture.

According to Kamath, the preparation for the 2011 edition began a year in advance, with the theme ‘Uncertainty: The New Certainty’ having been unveiled during the 2009 edition itself in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Almost 100 speakers were contacted before the final 49 were chosen. The organising committee also undertook roadshows in 10 countries, mostly in Asia, to publicise the event.

“The roadshows did create a lot of curiosity, with word of mouth playing its part,” says Kamath.

Whilst he declines to be drawn into the investment that has gone into the four-day event, he indicates the organising committee is on its way to recovering the money via delegate fees and sponsorships.

Sponsors of the event include STAR Network, ZEE, Puravankara, Nirmal Lifestyle, PepsiCo and Pernod Ricard, among others.