Beer, sun and the spectre of recession marked the fourth edition of Goafest on the Cavelossim beach in south Goa.
Beer, sun and the spectre of recession, not necessarily in that order, marked the fourth edition of Goafest on the Cavelossim beach in south Goa.
The ‘r’ word made its presence felt in every lecture and discussion. That’s par for the course given that the organisers — the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Ad Club Bombay — had themselves at a point in time nurtured doubts on the do.
Scuttlebutt on chary sponsors and agencies abounded initially.
In the end, the festival did happen, but certain questions linger.
While there was a venerable list of speakers and entries surged by 10% over last year for both the Media and Creative Abby’s, the juries found entries in many categories undeserving of the top prize.
The result: many of them didn’t have a gold winner.
Only in five of 12 categories of Media Abby’s was a gold awarded.
Creative Abby’s were no better. Not only did many categories not have a gold, quite a few did not even have a bronze.
KS Chakravarthy, national creative director, Draft FCB Ulka, who chaired the jury for radio category, said there were not many awards in the segment. “The problem was there were not many ads that the jury felt like listening to a second time,” said “Chax”, as he is known in the ad frat.
However, the chair of the ‘film’ category, Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman & regional creative director, Asia Pacific, McCann Erickson, said the juries had been quite harsh on the entries and should not be so next year.
Of the 14 sub-categories in film, there was not a single gold and four went without any awards.
Were the entries really lacking in quality? “No, I don’t think so. The jury was too stringent,” said an executive from one of the country’s top agencies, who did not wish to be named.
There was enough positivity, though. Despite companies and agencies slashing budgets drastically, the number of delegates still topped 2,000, compared with 3,000 last year. The presence of icons such as Dan Wieden, John Hegarty and Jean-Marie Dru made the participants forget the blistering sun, if only for a while.
Where does the fest go from here? While the organisers are not going to have much better a time in putting together the next year’s gig, what with the downturn expected last longer, there were calls from many a speaker at the event to consider inviting entries from neighbouring countries to expand the scope and reach of the fest.
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