The Hindu Business Line : GoaFest: Numbers down, but not out

Ahmedabad/Mumbai, April 1 Will it, won’t it, will it, won’t it, yes it is! GoaFest is here. Quashing all the initial speculation and slowdown blues, the advertising carnival will kick off on Thursday at Cavelossim Beach and it promises to be a celebration of creativity and a gathering for learning and knowledge-sharing like never before.

Centred on the theme of “Why Waste a Good Recession?”, Mr Colvyn Harris, CEO, JWT, and Chairman GoaFest 2009, said youth-centric fests like this can have a lot of learning experiences. “ The Discovery Industry Leadership Conclave will feature speakers such as Mr Shailesh Rao, MD of Google, Mr Vineet Tanuja, Marketing Head of Nokia, Mr Pawan Goenka, President of Mahindra and Mahindra, who will share their thoughts on challenges facing the advertising and marketing industry”.

With four international speakers, including Mr Pick Dan Wieden of Nike’s Just do it fame, young people from the industry can interact with some of the heavyweights of the global ad world. “There are learnings for the seniors as well,” said Mr Madhukar Kamath, President of Advertising Agencies Association of India and Managing Director and CEO of Mudra.

Last year, there were around 2,900 delegates participating, of whom over 800 were under 30. “Despite the slowdown, we have already received 2,000 registrations and we expect it to climb to 2,500-2,800. This year we expect it to be around 2,500 participants,” said Mr Harris.

However, this year entries have taken precedence over people attending the awards ceremony in person in a bid to maintain the number of entries sent every year.

The Executive Creative Director of O&M, Mr Abhijit Avasthi, told Business Line, “It is a tough year for all corporates . While we do want our employees to attend the fest and return charged and energised for more work, we want to send in as many entries as possible which is an expensive exercise considering each entry costs between Rs 3,000 and Rs 4,000.”

O&M is not sponsoring a single delegate and has asked its employees to attend the fest on their own expense.

Leo Burnett too is taking 50 people less than what it took last year. “While last year we took 120 delegates, this year we have consciously decided to take 70, which is still a lot of people. Everybody has to be cautious about costs this time and cut back on avoidable expenditure,” said Mr Arvind Sharma, Chairman, India sub-continent. The agency is trying to send as many entries as it did last year, he said.

Both O&M and Leo Burnett agree that the ‘no frills-no thrills’ fest will not be an impediment to its success. Rather, as Mr Avasthi said, “For youngsters not able to go abroad, listening to the illustrious speakers will be a thrill in itself and they will return rejuvenated.”

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