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Imagine being greeted by an enthusiastic brass band when you walk into a five-star hotel. What are men in red, who are usually spotted playing music at weddings, doing on the porch of a posh hotel? The connection becomes apparent when you realise this is an advertising festival with the theme of Brand Baaja Baraat - the Goafest 2014.
The ninth edition of what is billed as India's answer to the Cannes Ad Fest, has begun at the Grand Hyatt in North Goa, and while organisers grappled with a delayed start, there were happy faces. These were mainly from the media and publishing industries, who were beaming with their Abby trophies in hand.
The first day of Goafest saw the coveted Media and first-time Publisher Abby awards handed out to 58 winners. Of these, 50 were Media Abby winners and eight were from the publishing fraternity.
Archrivals GroupM and Lodestar UM, who have traditionally fought tooth and nail for the Media Abbies, were at it again. Lodestar UM walked away with 11 Abbies - two gold, three silver and six bronze - pipping GroupM's two big agencies, Mindshare and Maxus, who bagged seven Abbies each. There was some consolation, however, as Mindshare equalled Lodestar UM's gold and silver tally by adding two bronze metals. Maxus, on the other hand, had to be contend with six silver and one bronze. No gold was awarded to the agency.
But there were other key winners on the first night such as out-of-home agency Milestone Brandcom and Omnicom's second media agency, PHD, which was launched three years ago.
The latter walked away with a Grand Prix in digital content creation strategy for Hindustan Unilever's BeBeautiful website that is devoted to fashion, beauty and lifestyle. PHD also had the most number of gold (three) and one silver, taking its tally to five, which includes the Grand Prix. Milestone had two gold and silver metals and a bronze.
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Archrivals GroupM and Lodestar UM, who have traditionally fought tooth and nail for the Media Abbies, were at it again. Lodestar UM walked away with 11 Abbies - two gold, three silver and six bronze - pipping GroupM's two big agencies, Mindshare and Maxus, who bagged seven Abbies each. There was some consolation, however, as Mindshare equalled Lodestar UM's gold and silver tally by adding two bronze metals. Maxus, on the other hand, had to be contend with six silver and one bronze. No gold was awarded to the agency.
But there were other key winners on the first night such as out-of-home agency Milestone Brandcom and Omnicom's second media agency, PHD, which was launched three years ago.
The latter walked away with a Grand Prix in digital content creation strategy for Hindustan Unilever's BeBeautiful website that is devoted to fashion, beauty and lifestyle. PHD also had the most number of gold (three) and one silver, taking its tally to five, which includes the Grand Prix. Milestone had two gold and silver metals and a bronze.
In all, there were 619 entries this year - 10 per cent lower than last year - with the number getting whittled down to 150 before the 50 winners were declared. The Publisher Abbies, meanwhile, had no benchmark, yet the organisers were not expecting more than 40- 50 entries this year, persons in the know say. However, they were in for a surprise with the number of entries being 62, which were pared down to 20 before the final eight winners were declared.
Key winners were Times of India for its 'I Lead India' campaign, Forbes for its Volvo Cars Video in print and Dainik Bhaskar for its out-of-box ideas to market a newspaper.
Key takeout
"Publishers were certainly excited about participation.
It reflected on the work entered," says Ajay Chandwani, who oversaw the Publisher Abbys as chairman of the Creative Abby Awards. The Publisher Awards are part of the Creative Abbies.
In media, the thrust was on digital - social media and ambient and mobile media. There were two golds each given out in Ambient Media (non-traditional out-of-home media) and Social Media, respectively, while a gold each was given out in digital display, digital as a medium and mobile media.
Knowledge sessions
In today's inaugural session , addressed by Guy Hearn, chief innovation officer, Omnicom Media Group, the ad fraternity was quite literally drilled with a 'catch them young' message. Hearn's 45-minute-long session centred on building digital solutions for kids and creating a digitally "fluent", not "literate" future consumer base and the role brands can play. Hearn's message was to create solutions within the realm of utility echoed a view put forth by one of India's biggest advertisers at the Advertising Conclave, held as a part of Goafest last year: Nitin Paranjpe, then CEO, HUL, had stressed on the need for creating utility-driven solutions.
Tomorrow will begin with Preethi Mariappan, ECD, Razorfish, Germany, speaking about the transformation of social media. Providing a peek into her session's conversations points, Mariappan says, "Clients and creative teams are no longer thinking simply about the mechanics of the platform. The conversation now needs to move to level 2 and brands must ask themselves 'what's the behaviour that they wish to illicit from the consumer'?"
