No protests, no scandals, no boycotts. Leaving controversies of the previous years behind, Goafest enters its seventh year on a quiet note indicating that the advertising fraternity’s annual exercise to raise a toast to the best of creative work and the brightest of talents has finally come of age. While the fun and games are there, Goafest this year is looking to build on its image as a serious event where creative minds meet to brainstorm and chart out effective ways of consumer engagement.

The theme for this year’s Goafest is ?Magic of ideas?. As the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Ad Club Bombay flag off the three-day annual festival on April 19 at Zuri White Sands in South Goa, there are several firsts this time. This year, Goafest has invited countries across South Asia ?Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal ? to send their delegates as well as entries. In another interesting development, Creative Abby and Media Abby awards, the highpoint of Goafest, have launched a Grand Prix prize in all the verticals.

The festival has managed to garner an impressive line-up of speakers this year. They include Jonathan Mildenhall, global advertising strategy and content excellence vice president, The Coca-Cola Company; Jean Yves Naouri, chief operating officer and member of management board, Publicis Groupe SA; Lucas Watson, vice president, global sales and industry marketing, YouTube, Tim Love, vice chairman of Omnicom Group and Jayant Murty, director of strategy, media and integrated marketing, Asia Pacific, Intel Corporation, among many others.

This year, Goafest has received more than 4250 entries for the Creative Abby awards. As a curtain raiser to this year’s festival, we asked six top professionals from the advertising, media and marketing industry to nominate three favourite contenders for top prizes at this year’s Goafest in all the categories ? TV, radio, print, out of home (OOH), media innovation and digital. Our jury members are Ashish Mishra, chief strategist and head, Water (the design outfit of DDB Mudra Group), Divya Pratap Mehta, vice president, planning, Grey India, Carlton D’Silva, chief creative officer at Hungama Digital Media Entertainment, Narayan Kumar, director, Metal Communications, Nisha Naraya-nan, senior vice president, Projects and Programming, Red FM and Titus Upputuru, national creative director, Dentsu Marcom.

Interestingly, two of the top three TV ads selected as top contenders for Goafest 2012 (from Cadbury India and Airtel) were part of BrandWagon’s Top Ten Ads of 2011. The criteria for selecting the top three print ads, according to Ashish Mishra, chief strategist and head, Water, is this: “There are these three sets of works in the print medium that make sense these days. The first lot where the medium is done justice to, and plays a lead role in communication. The second set is where print plays a role in conjunction to another lead medium but still does a job beyond being an adaptation. The third genre is where it plays a role as a trigger or a catalyst for a larger integrated experience.”

Digital is still considered to be a tough nut to crack in the Indian market. Says Alok Agrawal, chief operating officer, Cheil Worldwide, SW Asia. “First problem is that I am struggling to recall even one campaign I may have seen myself online. All one gets to see is banners, site takeovers and Facebook apps throwing away gifts. Hardly inspiring.”

He adds, “I would hesitate to award any campaign unless something spectacular is submitted which no one ever saw. Makes me wonder. As a country we still have to go a long way to create the likes of Tesco’s Home Plus created by Cheil Worldwide which won the Grand Prix last year at Cannes. Or Old Spice, Doritos, Pay with a Tweet, Best Buy’s Twelpforce or even Submissive Chicken, which is almost a decade old now. ”

Grey’s Divya Pratap Mehta says that radio is still an under-leveraged medium. ?A lot of its potential to create dialogue, engagement and time-based interventions has not been exploited.?

To know more about our jury’s favourites, turn to Page 2. Also, check out ‘Goafest Snapshot’ on page 4 for all that you want to know about this year’s festival.