Day 1 sees few slowdown signs

The three-day Goa Adfest 2009 kicked off at Cavelossim Beach today with the Industry Leadership Conclave. And while the world rues over the economic slump, the mood at the fest was upbeat, with participants looking at the recession as an opportunity to build brands and establish leadership.

Over the years, the Goa Fest has evolved from an event with only broadcasters as the audience to include media and, this year, advertisers too. The scale was also larger, as it moved out of the The Leela hotel to a makeshift convention village on the Cavelossim beach at south Goa. The attendance, though was about the same, with close to 250-300 people attending.

 

Spotted in the audience were top industry honchos like Piyush Pandey of O&M, Sam Balsara of Madison, Vikram Sakhuja of Group M and Neeraj Roy of Hungama.

Starting the fest on a positive note was Pawan Goenka, president (automotive sector) and a member of the group management board at Mahindra & Mahindra, who spoke of increasing his ad budgets by 50-60 per cent in the 2010 fiscal over 2009. “We are reducing our capex by Rs 500 crore, but the cutback will not be experienced in layoffs, advertising spends or delays in the planned car launches in the next two years,” said Goenka.

Another positive for the day was the stock market closing at a three-month high of 10, 348. “Could this mean the recession is over?” asked Vineet Taneja, director (marketing), Nokia, whose strategy to beat the downturn is higher rural penetration and focus on increasing service offerings as it launches new models, giving consumers tangible benefits in changing mobiles.

Other measures being adopted during the tough times include “simplifying organisation structures and looking for higher lead convergence from marketing initiatives”, according to Taneja.

With accountability and return on investments being high on the marketers’ mind, Google Managing Director Shailesh Rao was in the spotlight, as companies increase spending on below-the-line (BTL) marketing activities like online and mobile advertising. For instance, Nokia is moving 16 per cent of its above-the-line marketing spends from television, outdoors and other mass media to BTL. “There are 50-60 million online users in India and internet usage is growing 56 per cent year-on-year,” said Rao, explaining it made sense for marketers to experiment more with the medium now, as the entry costs are low.

However, it wasn’t entirely positive notes. Toshan Tamhane, principal consultant, Mckinsey and Company, India, said media and advertising were among the most effected during the downturn and would remain under pressure for the next 12 months.