Even as the countdown to this year?s Goafest had begun, came the news that advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, a regular winner at the Creative Abbys, the creative awards section of Goafest, and arguably the most feted agency in the country, had decided to opt out. Industry watchers tried to fathom the reasons for Ogilvy & Mather?s decision and its fallout on the annual festival organised by the Advertising Agencies Association Of India (AAAI) and The Advertising Club. But, Shashi Sinha, president of The Advertising Club and chairman of the Abby Awards Governing Council remains confident that the festival will lose none of its lustre. It is not a reflection on the festival, is his emphatic reply. In this interview with FE Brandwagon?s Anushree Chandran, Sinha says this year?s Goafest which begins on April 5 will not only be bigger and better, but that the organisers are considering increasing the number of days for the festival in the future. He also spoke about how increasing democratisation of the awards and cut-throat competition will force many big-league agencies to sit out. Edited excerpts:

How many entries has Goafest received this time around?

In spite of this being a tough year for brands and agencies, we?ve not had a problem in the number of entries. We hope to receive around 4000 entries this time. We have hiked the entry fees this year by 10-12%. We?ve received a lot of good work from Sri Lanka. I don?t think we have got many entries from Pakistan this time around because of external factors. Ogilvy & Mather not participating will not deter the event in any way. We have 700 entries from the media agencies, which is a good ratio to the number of entries vying for the creative awards. Earlier, the number of media entries was around 10% of the creative entries.

As far as plans go, the first-day conclave will see Indian marketers speaking at the sessions. International speakers will come in later. The speakers will obviously be the big boys and we are focusing on better interactions. The idea is to have a more constructive discussion from an Indian industry point of view. We have also opened up branded content as a category. We can open up a lot more categories but we are constrained by time. We are considering increasing the number of days for the festival in future. Now, we have pretty much all the categories as Cannes Lions festival. The only thing missing is promos and activations but that will also happen soon.

What have been the big changes at Goafest in the past few years?

Larger democratisation of the festival is the biggest change. While everyone talks of the big agencies and the big agencies still dominate, more than 250 organisations are participating in the festival and not all of them are the big league agencies. Ten years ago, only about 15-20 organisations participated in awards or festivals. But now, the entries come from organisations across the board. A lot of advertising now comes from social media companies. While film and print remain big, digital is huge in terms of the sub-categories we have created and also the number of entries that we get. Besides, it?s not just ad agencies that can enter their work in the festival. All platforms can. This is also reflected in the speaker list– they are not just creative minds. Our focus is that we democratise this further and make it a larger eco-system.

How successful have you been when it comes to weeding out scam ads?

To be candid, it is tough to weed out scam ads. When I took over, I used to get KPMG to talk to the advertisers. Unfortunately, there are advertisers who are hand-in-glove on scam ads. From our side, we are doing 100% back checks. We need the proof of release, date of release, authentication from the client, etc. We, at times, call back clients to verify. But in cases where the clients are hand-in-glove, there is not much we can do.

The whole purpose of integrating the Goafest and Abby awards was to make this the one definitive award for the industry. But you still have agencies like Ogilvy& Mather opting out?

It still is the definitive award. From our point of view, if Piyush Pandey decides to give it a miss, it is his decision. He will obviously be missed. The Ad Club and AAAI have been running Goafest for five years and to be fair, Ogilvy has been participating and they?ve also been big winners. So they?ve decided not to participate this one time around and it is not a reflection on the festival. The bigger thing is that we have 250-plus organisations participating. To the best of my knowledge, all the other big agencies are there in Goafest this time around.

As a chairman, what will be your message to the agencies not participating?

I would obviously say let?s come together for the awards. It is, after all, an industry initiative. Unfortunately, this whole business has come to be dominated by three to four big agencies. My answer to this problem is to bring more people in, throw the floodgates open and democratise the process further. We have tried our best not to put out an agency of the year. When we start opening up the Grand Prix, we are saying that we are celebrating the best of work. The best can go to anyone and can come from anywhere. The composition of jury is changing. It no more comprises traditional advertising people. When this democratisation happens, the Grand Prix can go to anyone. Obviously, the dominance of a few agencies will then go away. The awards are a reflection of what?s happening on the ground. If a lesser known company manages to bag a Grand Prix, it reflects a change in status quo. The good news is that none of these agencies that choose not to participate have a problem with the process of the awards. We have put some stringent rules in place.

The original intent was to make Goafest yet another Cannes Lions but the South Asian experiment seems to be faltering. What do you think?

Goafest is the Cannes for India. One of the reasons why we brought the Ad Club and the AAAI awards together was that there should be no bickering. South Asia part is an attempt, but frankly the industry around us is not that hot in terms of creative work. Sri Lanka is very good. The others are average. With Pakistan, the relationship is such that you don?t know how to handle it. At an industry level, we have some very good friends in the Pakistan ad industry but political factors obviously determine their participation. On the whole, the quality of work from South Asia is a bit average. In the Cannes ad festival, there is no separate category for South Asia. Here we have created a separate category to encourage them.

Goafest has its own strengths and weaknesses. The strength is that this is a collective attempt by the whole industry and things are openly discussed and there is transparency. The weakness is that there?s a day job to be done and this is pro bono work. Cannes Lions on the other hand is a commercial organisation. Decisions are taken unilaterally by one or two persons and they run with it. Besides, Cannes Lions was built as a brand in 20-25 years. We have barely had a run of five-six years.

How is the plan to take Ad Club Bombay national panning out?

The Ad Club was called the Ad Club Bombay earlier, but if you ask me, in various ways, the centre of gravity is now shifting to Delhi. The big boys are here in Mumbai, but if you go to meet clients/advertisers, many of them sit out of Delhi. The Ad Club has this advantage that it sees participation from clients, agencies and also the media. We found Delhi to be a very valuable market. While we wanted the Ad Club to have a pan India footprint, we also didn?t want to hijack the local Ad Clubs such as those in Bangalore and Kolkata. It is not about one-upmanship with the other local Ad Clubs. So if Ad Club Bangalore wants to run its awards, it is most welcome.

Meanwhile, it will take us time to put an infrastructure in place in Delhi. After Delhi, we will try and do things in cities that don?t have too much activity. Delhi had an Ad Club that was barely functional. It took me around eight months of work and I started by creating a shadow committee for Delhi, which has Sanjeev Bhargava (JWT), Sudha Natrajan (former Lintas Media Group executive) and N Rajaram (Airtel). We will have a series of plans for Delhi. We recently did a Cannes screening there. Soon, we will have an ad review by Piyush Pandey and Balki. They?ve both agreed, and we are working out the dates.

As far as IPG Mediabrands goes, how will the recent acquisition of Interactive Avenues lend fillip to your plans?

It has just been three-four months since I?ve been put in charge of Mediabrands in India, and it is a large empire. I am still trying to put in a common culture. Interactive Avenues is a very big acquisition for us and it was long in the making. The big thing is that it will ramp up our digital offering in a big way. They have end-to-end creative capabilities. Also, there are plans to make India a hub for international markets. India?s got great talent in the digital space and it is cheap. Besides, it will support Mediabrands in the short term. In the long-term, it will be the route to our association with the creative.

Shashi Sinha, President, The Advertising Club & chairman, Abby Awards Governing Council