This year at Goafest, the Media Abbys had two new categories?Best Communication Strategy and Best Contribution to a Campaign by a Media Owner?in association with The Festival of Media global 2011 awards. The winners have been fast-tracked to the final round at The Festival of Media Awards that will be held from May 8-10, in Montreaux, Switzerland.
While the Best Contribution to a Campaign by a Media Owner award did not find any winners, Mediacom picked up two metals — a gold and a silver, for its Volkswagen Polo launch campaign and the Skoda Yeti ?Right of Way Expedition? campaign, respectively, in the Best Communication Strategy category. Charlie Crown, founder, the Festival of Media spoke to FE?s Pritha Mitra Dasgupta on the quality of Indian creatives he saw, how much he adored Creativeland Asia?s Hippo Twitter campaign and emerging media trends. Edited excerpts.
How did the association with Goafest happen?
We have always had a connection to India. The very first Festival of Media in Venice in 2007 had Sam Balsara speaking on trends in the Indian market. And that developed an association with the Indian community. That has grown gently and steadily. Lynn D?Souza is a judge of our Festival of Media awards this year. And many other Indian companies have friends in the business. We also run a trade magazine, that?s an international magazine for the international advertising association, which has a strong reader?s base in Mumbai and Delhi. Lynn called me up and asked if we will be interested in doing something with Goafest and we were very excited to do that.
Tell us about the quality of entries you saw.
I think there were over 500 entries just for two categories, which is amazing. But I got to see only a few shortlists. I saw only 9 cases which were filtered by the Goafest committee. I really thought 33% of them were of international quality. The three I loved are the three we have decided to fast-track for the Festival of Media awards. Volkswagen Polo campaign had already been shortlisted by our international panel. It?s already a leading ad. I loved the ?media first? with Times of India which is interesting. It tells us about creative media and how even the powerful media owners are having to be a bit more creative with their inventory. I loved the idea of the rally by Volkswagen. I loved the Skoda idea. They were very clear on their marketing challenge. Indians were perceiving a smaller SUV to be less punchy and powerful and less good off-road. So they decided to take it out in the jungle and invited people to follow it on Facebook and to join the journey. I thought that was a really nice insight and a really good strategy. Interestingly, most of these camapigns belong to the automotive sector. And the final one I love was the Hippo ?tracking the inventory? campaign on Twitter. That?s one of the best things I have seen in recent times.
How do you think this association with Goafest will help Festival of Media and vice versa?
The Festival of Media is designed to be a proper global celebration. And if we are not engaging and understanding key markets like India then we are not serving the industry. So it helps us by developing an understanding of the market.
So that?s the key thing. It might work the other way around. I would like to think that we might be able to help Goafest become a little bit more media-centric in its way of thinking. I think that?s the way marketers are thinking. So I think we can help align Goafest a little bit with the attitudes of the global marketing directors.
Could you please elaborate on the category in which there were no winners. What went wrong?
What we are looking for in the Best Contribution to a Campaign by a Media Owner category is not just when a media owner gives some creative inventory away or does a deal with a media agency. What we are looking for in that category is to reflect the fact that more media owners are starting to behave in their businesses like agencies, creating content, using their events? prowess, bringing focus groups from their readers or viewers to address marketing problems. It?s happening in other parts of the world and I assume that it happens in India too but there is no evidence of that in the entries that we saw. So I call upon media owners in India to look at what?s happening around the world and to see if they can respond.
Give us an example.
If you look at the digital platform and Microsoft and Yahoo?s display businesses, a lot of their work now is about creating the campaign, creating the advertising for their clients. And then using their digital networks and their technologies in behavioural targeting to access the contribution of that work. That is true integration.
There are other companies like traditional broadcasters creating content where the fabric of the content is from the advertiser. Not just product placement but been co-created. That?s the kind of work we are looking at. And that?s happening all across the world.
What do you have to say about Goafest considering this is your first year at the festival?
Friendly, sharp, incredibly welcoming people. Incredibly proud of the Indian market. I love the fact that there is civility among the competitors and they are at some level friends, which you don?t get in a lot of markets.