India?s biggest advertising festival got off to an intellectual start on Wednesday with industry stalwarts debating ?Are agencies ready for the new decade?? Key speakers included Srinivasan K Swamy, chairman, Goafest Advertising Conclave, Rajiv Dube, director, Aditya Birla Management Corporation and Mayank Pareek, managing executive officer, Maruti Udyog.
The five-day fest, organised by the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Advertising Club of Bombay is also hosting an art workshop and a competition called ?Creativity with a conscience?, in which participants showed off their creative talent making things from objects like old television set, mannequin, guitar and even graffiti wall.
Dube of Aditya Birla confessed that advertisers are not ready for the next decade saying they are preparing themselves. Pointing out the issues, he said, ?We wish ad agencies to be strategic partners rather than just a provider of creative input.? He cited the example of the automobile industry where the manufacturer and supplier sit together whenever they launch a new car or a new model. ?Similarly we need to require our ad agency partners to sit with us,? he observed adding that some of the ad agencies? roles need to be reinforced. ?Today the role of account planner has diminished to that of a coordinator,? Swamy said adding ?There is a future in the advertising industry and the future needs to be recreated so that we are stronger and better.?
The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has partnered with the event hoping to connect with the younger members of the fraternity. For the first time ever, ASCI also launched an Ambassador programme to promote self-regulation of creativity in Indian advertising. It aims to use peer networking to enrol more support from the Indian advertising and marketing fraternity and remain committed to ASCI?s mission. The first set of members will include the ASCI board of members, various agency heads and marketers and 90 participants of the Creativity with a Conscience. In addition to the contest, ASCI in collaboration with Naked Communication organised a workshop on social media around the theme of self-regulation in advertising. Social media has emerged as a widely-endorsed democratic space where every citizen has the right to voice his or her opinion. And marketers are now looking at this space to gauge the buzz around their products, brands, and their company itself.
Alan Collaco, Secretary General, ASCI said, ?ASCI has launched three key Self-Regulation Guidelines regarding advertising in food, auto and educational sectors. The ASCI Ambassador programme aims to take the ASCI mission a step further by using mentor influence to generate support amongst advertising and marketing professionals to promote the cause of advertising with a conscience.?
Subhash Kamath, managing partner, BBH India and ASCI board member, said, ?ASCI has been doing a good job in terms of self regulation but so far the focus of engagement has been at a senior level. We felt that it was very important to for ASCI to engage beyond the senior level and go to the level of people who actually do the work. The contest ?creativity with a conscience? was a fun way of doing that.?
The third day of the ad festival will see the most coveted Creative and Media Abbys being announced. The advertising fraternity will have the opportunity to hear out some of the best names of global advertising including Charlie Crow, Scott Goodson, John Hegarty, Laurie Coots and others.