Goafest tries to exorcise the ghost of the past

The sixth edition of the ad show began yesterday. Can the AAAI and Ad Club pull off a scam-free festival?

It is that time of the year when advertising and media professionals are making their annual trip to Goa courtesy the adfest held jointly by the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Advertising Club of Bombay.

The sixth edition of the Goafest began on Tuesday. While the festival this year is bigger with the customary three-day event expanded to a five-day show stretching up to April 9, the question still remains: Can the AAAI and the Ad Club pull off a scam-free fest?

“I think both the bodies have collectively worked to ensure that the festival is indeed scam-free,” says Shashi Sinha, chairman of the Advertising Governing Council (AGC), a nine-member committee set up in January this year to ensure that the sixth edition runs smoothly. “Concerns about self-voting by jurors or even scam ads entered by agencies have been addressed with a rigorous system,” he says.

Last year jurors judging the creative awards – which is the main awards declared at the festival – were caught voting for their agency’s work. “This is something that is not permitted in any advertising festival, but somehow jurors here were found doing it,” says the creative director of a popular ad agency, who declined to be quoted.

The resultant hue and cry severely tarnised the reputation of Goafest, which was already reeling under the combined weight of leaks and scam ads.

Sinha says that judging for both the creative and media awards has been done this year in two rounds. “After the first round, the shortlisted entries in both creative and media were put up on the Ad Club website inviting objections, if any. At the same time, we also conducted client checks to verify whether work entered was scam in nature,” he says.

A total of 3,700 entries in creative and 537 entries in media were entered in this year’s Goafest across 150 organisations. “While the creative entries are more or less the same over last year, the increase in media entries has been about 20 per cent,” Sinha says. The number of organisations participating this year has gone up three times over last year.

Agencies such as Mc-Cann Erickson, Contract Advertising and Saatchi & Saatchi which stayed out last year are participating this year. This is in addition to agencies such as Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), Mudra, JWT and Leo Burrnett, who have been regulars at Goafest. But there are notable absentees such as Taproot, Publicis and Ambience,

While Agnello Dias, founder and chief creative officer, of Taproot, says that the agency’s absence has nothing to do with the scams, Nakul Chopra, CEO, Publicis South Asia, is more forthcoming. “Given what transpired last year, I would rather wait and see how things transpire. If things improve, then the comfort level will grow next year,” he says.

Meanwhile, McCann-Erickson and Contract have said that the effort by the AGC prompted their entry back into the festival. “The decision to get back was an emotional one to support the effort to clean up the system,” says Ravi Deshpande, chairman & chief creative officer, Contract Advertising.

Deshpande is also the chairman of the print jury at this year’s festival, while Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman & regional creative director, APAC, McCann Worldgroup, heads the film jury. Piyush Pandey, executive chairman & creative director, South Asia, O&M, heads the integrated advertising category, and K V Sridhar, national creative director, Leo Burnett, is the head of the outdoor category.

Joshi, currently in Dubai, said over telephone. “The AGC is doing a great job. I couldn’t say no. When you see people really trying to do something to clean up the system, you want to support them,” he says. This point is endorsed by Kamal Basu, CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi India. “We didn’t boycott the awards last year. We simply didn’t have good enough entries to submit. This year we do, so we are there,” he adds.