With AAAI and the Ad Club coming together this year for a single advertising festival, the industry is all agog with excitement over GoaFest 2008. However, Lowe and McCann Erickson have stayed away from GoaFest this year. Would their absence make any difference or would the Festival go ahead with all the gaiety and business of advertising associated with it? exchange4media asks ad honchos.

The general view was that Lowe and McCann Erickson’s non-participation would not be a setback to GoaFest or Abby’s for that matter.

Though Lowe’s non-participation was expected given the agency’s absence from several other awards, McCann Erickson’s absence surprised some ad honchos.

Madhukar Kamath, Chairman, AAAI, emphatically said, “A couple of agencies not participating do not make a difference to the Awards. In fact, this year, the Awards have only got bigger.”

Kamath further said, “We wanted everyone to participate, and I personally spoke to the two agencies’ heads. All I can say is that whoever doesn’t participate stands to lose. My own point of view on this is that it is a pity that the youngsters in both these agencies would not get the opportunity to celebrate their work, after all, this Festival is a congregation for everyone to celebrate. The youngsters in these agencies would miss out on that.”

Madan Mohan, Senior Vice-President, TBWA\India, said, “I have now learnt that there won’t be a truce and that the cold war would continue. Again two significant names would be conspicuous by their absence. I only wish that these ‘issues’ were sorted out. It’s about participation of the industry as a whole, and two significant agencies backing off again this year only leads to disappointment.”

Subhash Kamath, CEO, Bates David Enterprise, and a member of the Ad Club, said, “I truely believe that the industry awards are bigger than any individual or agency. Thus, I don’t think it will in any way affect the Abby’s at GoaFest. I have tremendous respect for Prasoon and Balki as Creative Directors, but I am very disappointed that they have decided not to participate. As industry leaders, I wish they’d put the industry’s interests ahead of their own.”

Agnello Dias, National Creative Director, JWT, said, “It’s been some time since Lowe has taken part in creative awards. Usually those in the know look at the work that non-participating agencies enter in other award shows or through other sources and make their own guess as to where they would have stood were they to take part at GoaFest or Abby’s. Like fingerprints and relationships, internal agency dynamics are unique and can never be replicated. So, for anyone to make a comment on why, how and what makes any agency take whatever decision they take is not only wild guess, but foolish too. There is a lot of talk on why these two agencies find themselves in the situation they are in. I do not know how much of that is true.”