'Only premium ad fests will flourish'

Q&A: Terry Savage, Chairman, International Advertising Festival

Terry Savage, chairman, International Advertising Festival, Cannes Lions, is in India to promote the recently instituted Spikes Asia Awards that are to be held in Singapore. In this interview with Sapna Agarwal, he says that the global slowdown will accelerate the trend of agencies becoming selective about award festivals. Excerpts:

How do you rate India’s performance at Cannes vis-a-vis its Asian counterparts?
India won two metals in 2003; in 2009, the tally went up to 23. In 2003, the number of Indian jury members was four; in 2009, there were 11. So India is clearly becoming a creative powerhouse. Take last year’s Lead India campaign by JWT that won an Integrated Grand Prix at Cannes. It was a social campaign and it tried to bring change. Compare this with the Obama campaign that won this year. These are essentially the same – world class campaigns that strike a chord universally, irrespective of cultural boundaries.

 

What can we expect at Spikes?
Awards are one part of it. More importantly, the festival will have 26 seminars, six workshops and the entire Cannes process of judging, processes and standards. It is a platform to engage with marketers and clients. The festival is a part of the Cannes umbrella and therefore has the ability to pull in people from across the globe, add value and be superior to anything else in the region. And at a rate that is affordable to the region.

India has its own ad fests such as Goafest. Plus Indian ad agencies participate at Cannes in a big way. So how would Spikes Asia add to the experience?
What is important at Spikes Asia is the learning. India has performed spectacularly well at Cannes in the last two years but the country has never won a cyber lion. What does this mean for India, which is a software/ IT powerhouse? The world is moving towards digital, but India still needs to understand what is happening in this space and apply the world knowledge at the regional level.

With the learning focus at the festival, the innovation in this region will get accelerated. Cannes is the mother ship and is the premium advertising festival globally. Last year we instituted the Middle East festival – Dubai Lynx and a European festival – Eurobest. And this year we are rolling out Spikes Asia. A regional festival allows us to deal with issues that are pertaining to the region.

Do you see the number of entries at award functions increasing in 2010?
The year 2010 will be better than 2009. We expect to see more entries and delegates, but it will not be as good as the boom years of 2008. There is a growing consciousness amongst agencies and clients to be more cautious and this will continue for a while.

In such a difficult economic environment, will Spikes Asia get enough response?
The cost of one delegate attending Cannes would be upwards of $10,000 (Rs 5,00,000). It is only attended by the top honchos of the advertising world. We expect at least 800 people to register and have already got 450 registrations. The registrations are coming from across the region from countries like Japan, India, Singapore, Australia and even from the US and UK. So far, we have received 2,750 entries for the categories of print, TV, radio, media, design, interact, digital, integrated and direct marketing. A festival like Spikes Asia brings in affordability for people in the region.

How do you see the global slowdown affecting ad festivals?
There are too many awards. So the not-so-premium awards functions will be under threat. However, festivals that provide serious learning, networking and a platform for meeting with peers are the ones that will flourish.