The final day of GoaFest 2010 held a lot of promise for a lot of people. For many, it was the final day of reckoning and glory. For a few, it was an opportunity to let their hair down and party hard. Hopefully, it was a fortunate day for job seekers, and as informed sources tell me, it was ‘pay dirt’ time for the beach shack owners near the GoaFest venue.

The Creative Abby night is what the creative fraternity works a full hard year for, and at the end of it, it all boils down to this. Their final countdown!

I still have a ‘heady’ head as I sit down to pen my musings for the day that was yesterday. The morning began with a breakfast tete-a-tete on the absence of creative honchos at the Media Abby awards the previous night. I took up the cudgels wholeheartedly and enjoyed the punches and uppercuts we gave them. I just can’t seem to understand their ‘double standards’. Ask them for a sound byte on media and one would hear echoes reverberating on how critically important the role media plays in their lives and how integral the function is to ‘integrated communications’, but on the night, they certainly didn’t extend any support in spirit. Shame on them!

Shame on me, said my wife, for losing a few thousand quids playing roulette at the casino before lunch. Men will be men won’t they?

I strolled into the ad village after lunch in the sweltering heat and really envied all the young people under the sprinklers at the UTV Bindaas rain dance. Boy oh boy… They certainly exuded staggering energy levels, given that the rain dance went on for about 4 hours!

As I walked into the welcome air-conditioned dome in the searing heat at 3 pm, I noticed a thinner audience paying rapt attention to a panel discussion on social media. I sat there too, because it was a better place to beat the heat. The panel gave me the impression that their audience was the lesser mortals and they (the panel) were the avatars from the social media world, condescendingly doling out advice for the future.

Hmmm… the power of the stage they say… especially when you have a microphone in your hand!

George Michaelides frankly put most to sleep and the beer certainly didn’t help the ‘pay attention’ cause! Can someone explain those art directed 60s kind of look slides to me please?

Jan Leth from Ogilvy Digital was very crisp and refreshing. He had his own youthful style and the examples he punctuated his presentation with were quite unique and not the usual stuff that one normally gets to see.

Andy Greenway hasn’t changed a bit since I knew him from the mid 90s. Cool creative examples are the best antidote to pump up a lazy audience and he did that in his own imitable style and brought down the curtain on the two days of Knowledge and Learning sessions.

I must say that all in all, the quality of the speakers across the three days of GoaFest 2010 was a tad shade paler than the previous years and the organisers need to put it a lot more effort into the content and relevance of the speaker sessions next year.

The ‘friends and available people’ in the global agency network with a message that says – “Are you free to come down to Goa on the 8th of April for two days” just doesn’t work. For instance, I would be extremely eager to hear what the owners or marketers of Karbonn or Micromax have to say on what has made them the new challenger handset brands in India.

Topics like that, for example, are far more relevant and interesting to our kind of audience than watching great TV commercials of yesteryears.

The big night did take all of four hours to give away the 200-odd metals, of which Gold was in very short supply. I wonder why the sadistic streak of our creative jury never seems to end. They just feel it’s below their exalted status to be big-hearted and reward truly good work.

I thought Mudra put up an extremely impressive performance last night, followed by Publicis, and judging by reactions, it wasn’t a canter for Ogilvy this time around. Predictably, they did win at the end, but as someone said to me… “Only by a ZooZoo head”.

I would end by making an impassioned plea to both the AAAI and the Ad Club Bombay. For God’s sake remove all the ambiguity and ‘sitting on the fence’ posturing about which agency deserves to be called the Agency of the Year and who does not.

Next year around, please decide the points system and be emphatic about who wins, and who make up the rest of the leader board. Please erase issues about agencies bringing their country cousins from across the border and please be clear that the craft awards have no significance for creative agencies. But please be clear!

It’s about having a definitive result and that’s why we enter awards. I do not subscribe to what Prasoon Joshi said four years ago, when he ascribed the Abby awards to “a celebration of ideas and creativity”. That held true four years ago, because we wanted to pacify and mollycoddle the creative agencies into whole-hearted participation at that point in time. The Abby awards isn’t a Christmas party… it is serious business for those who choose to participate.

For those who don’t, please think of a better excuse next year!

The second session of Day 3 at GoaFest 2009 saw George Michaelides, Global Leader (Invention) at Mindshare, conduct a session in which he stressed on the ‘new creativity’, which, according to him, was the need of the hour for advertising agencies.

Michaelides explained that advertising had always been seen as one aspect of marketing communications, but now it needed to broaden its definition. “It’s not about advertising. Rather, it is about generating talkability for your brands,” he said, adding, “If that approach is adopted, it will act as an acid test of new creativity.”

Elaborating further, he said, “The new creativity has to be the language of the business in the future.”

Referring to the contemporary marketing arena, he said that the connectivity from one person to the other was resulting in mass awareness, typically like a viral on the Internet. A classic example of this would be thousands of people sharing information and at the same time disseminating it as well, be it on the web or any other platform.

On the opportunities in India, Michaelides said, “India has been a country that offers great opportunities, and the history suggests that. Creativity, too, is seen to be rising here. With diverse cultures, it becomes challenging to addresses marketing problems. Also, there is a certain amount of chaos, where the rich people live side by side with the poor.”

He further said, “I think India is at that kind of point where there are young people who understand technology, and out of all this buzz, there are new things that come.”

The final day of GoaFest 2010 ended on a high note for Ogilvy India with the agency bagging the maximum metals at the Creative Abby Awards – 43 to be precise (three Golds, nine Silvers and 30 Bronzes). The agency also bagged the Grand Prix in the Integrated category for Vodafone ZooZoos. Nirvana Films, too, took home the Grand Prix for Vodafone ZooZoos. Mudra Group secured the second position with a total of 33 metals, including four Golds, 12 Silvers and 16 Bronzes, followed by Publicis Communication, which bagged a total of 22 metals (two Golds, six Silvers and 14 Bronzes).

JWT India had a total of 12 metals – two Silvers and 10 Bronzes, followed by Leo Burnett India, which had three Silvers and eight Bronzes. Creativeland Asia bagged a total of 10 metals comprising one Gold, two Silvers and seven Bronzes. Bates 141 metal tally included one Gold, two Silvers and five Bronzes. Rediffusion Y&R, Taproot India and Cheil Communications all bagged five metals each.

Under the Film Craft category, Nirvana Films had a total of 12 metals – four Golds, three Silvers and four Bronzes. Corcoise Films took home a Gold, five Silvers and one Bronze, while Footcandles won two Silvers and four Bronzes.

Ogilvy & Mather, which had the highest metal tally, won three Golds for their work on Vodafone ZooZoos and The Economist under the Film Single, Integrated and Direct categories.

Mudra bagged five Golds for their work on Srujan, The Economic Times, Incredible Taj and Ministry of Tourism under the categories of Print Single, Direct, Out of Home and Print Craft.

Publicis Communication won two Golds in the Film Craft category, sub-categories of Music Score and Animation, for their work on Rotaract Club of Mumbai.

Creativeland Asia bagged a Gold for the work doe for client Café Coffee Day in the Out of Home category, while Bates 141 took home a Gold for its work on India Book Distribution in the Direct category.

Nirvana Films, which bagged the Grand Prix for its work on Vodafone ZooZoos, also took home four Golds – one for Vodafone ZooZoos, two for Frooti and one for Bajaj in the Film Craft category.

Corcoise Films won a Gold for the work done for Max NewYork, also in the Film Craft category.

Metal Tally:

The country’s top advertising honchos speak about their expectations from the Media Abby Awards that would be presented on Day 2 of GoaFest 2010.

Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman & National Creative Director - Ogilvy & Mather India and South Asia:

Fair judging, good results and great motivation. Besides this, media is a part of life and affects people in making an effective choice and in a right fashion. In all, I hope to see great creativity shine at the Media Abbys.

Mahesh Chauhan, Group CEO, Rediffusion Y&R:

The media game has changed over the past 4-5 years. Though there is a revolution that is spotted in terms of the quality of work, it is still early stages for the spark to emanate full-scale. I am looking forward to attending the Media Abby awards night with full gusto.

Subhash Kamat, Managing Partner, BBH India:

I really want to see a complete new innovation in the media space, especially in mediums like OOH and Activations as these are the mediums that are becoming important in today’s media space. Taking this forward, what is needed today is for the media business to create a benchmark in innovated branded content.

Sonal Dabral, Chairman, India & Regional Executive Creative Director, Bates 141:

I have been looking forward to the works from the media agencies. There are so many mediums like channels, magazines and newspapers and with the whole plethora out there, I expect more innovation and great campaign ideas taking root, thereby making this space even more interesting.

Ambi Parameswaran, CEO, DraftFCB+Ulka, Mumbai:

I expect tough competition this time at the Media Abbys. It seems that the quality of work that has entered this year is really good, and we shall see the best picking up the awards. As for my expectations, I think Lodestar Universal has done some good work on Tata Docomo, and I expect some metals going their way.

Ashish Bhasin, Chairman India & CEO South East Asia, Aegis Media and Director Posterscope – APAC:

What I am looking forward to from the Media Abby awards this year is the different kind of works coming from the routine mediums. Though I am looking forward to seeing winners from diverse categories, my focus will be on the works that will be from Digital and OOH, the mediums that need to occupy centrestage at the event now.

Josy Paul, Chairman and NCD, BBDO India:

I guess this year’s Media Abby will open my mind to new possibilities in branded content. And show us how we can create social movements using integrated media.

Arvind Sharma, Chairman and CEO, Leo Burnett:

Rahul Sengupta, NCD, TBWA/India:

When there is some kind of ground-breaking work… there are times that there are no industry examples that such work would be ever done… So there is a task or challenge that to convince the client to sell such works relating to creativity.

Satbir Singh, CCO, Euro RSCG:

There are so many campaigns that are running and I would say that there are exceptional works and works that are below average. So, if asking that if it’s a challenge to sell creative ideas to the client, my answer is yes or no. There are many examples of commercials that are on air, which in my mind, should not have been approved by the clients. And on the other side there are great ideas, which are approved by the client.

KV Sridhar, NCD, Leo Burnett:

I don’t believe that clients do not buy great creative ideas. Most of them do approve good ideas, provided we solve their problems. On the other hand, I feel that the agencies aren’t really producing ideas that are high on creativity.

KS Chakravarthy, DraftFCB+Ulka:

Agencies often end up on the winning side by convincing the clients about the ideas they come up with. Advertisers understand creativity, and at times, if they feel that a mass idea is not convincing enough, we ask them to go take them home. All in all, it’s not a challenge to sell ideas to clients. Also, it depends on the relationship you share with them.

Madan Mohan, EVP – Publicis India:

I think clients are very open to creativity, but many a times the benchmarks of creativity are different, hence it does become a challenge. One way is to make them recognise the merit of the idea and the benefit that they would reap.

Arijit Ray, EVP & Head Mumbai, Mudra:

There are clients who believe in creative communication solutions. Sometimes it happens that some clients equate each communication with a host of communications available to just one solution. So, for agencies it then becomes a challenge for giving the client the whole package of a 360-degree approach.

Rahul Jauhari, National Head of Creative, Pickle Advertising:

There have been inventions around new media avenues in today’s age. However, the clients are just focusing on more of traditional media and thus convincing the client to utilise and create communication towards new mediums is a task. It’s a challenge thus to convince the client to create communication towards the ever changing media avenues.

I am very pleased with the way the Media Abbys have gone so far. 484 entries as against 417 last year, 51 judges in Round 1 as against 35 judges last year, 14 judges in Round 2 as against eight judges last year… but these are merely statistics. The quality of entries that have been submitted this year is truly very good and inspirational. I will not single out any specific entry – as Jury Chairman, I would be giving the game away and ET will feel cheated that probably there is a simpler way of getting the results out. However, the work in some categories like Mixed Media (our answer to Integrated) is world class.

Further, we have made immense progress in the categories of Digital and Internet. I was judging at Cannes in 2008 and was disappointed that our quality of work in the Digital category was way behind international standards, but now I can proudly state that we are fast catching up. Unfortunately, TV, which was also the largest category, saw some uninspiring work. The jury was left wondering whether the work was not up to the mark or was it that we had seen it all and, therefore, were left unmoved.

It is significant to mention that all the winners you will see and almost all the work entered, had scale and canvas, was for well known brands and was recognised by one and all.

The other key point is that the presentation boards and videos have improved dramatically. One has already got used to high quality presentations at the Emvies, but now this shows that not only are we good at ideas and strategy, but also execution and presentation.

However, the big news of the Media Abbys 2010 was that all media agencies participated. The spirit was evident when some agencies sent in a few entries unmindful of the fact that they may not win anything (in fact some of them did go on to win). It was hearting to note that lack of ‘winability’ was not a criteria in most minds.

The large turnout of judges at both rounds and the diligent scrutiny and scoring showed that the focus was on judging the best winners and nothing else.

Finally, I am proud to be part of the media industry – we compete fiercely, but are part of a ‘Biradiri’; we all participate in the awards not caring a damn whether we have any winners or not, we see no scams or even if we do so the judging process is designed to eliminate such work. We have no controversies, no leaked awards (at least till the time I write this piece) and our show is on – First Day. First Show.

Enjoy.

(Shashi Sinha is Chairman, Media Abbys, GoaFest 2010 and CEO India, Lodestar Universal Media.)

The touchdown at Dabolim Airport this afternoon (April 8) was smooth and so was the GreyGoose at the hotel when I checked in. I was back in Goa for the 5th edition of the GoaFest, or as I call it, The Annual Advertising Re-Union, with a promise of lots of knowledge, celebration of ideas and a whole lot of fun. Colvyn Harris mentioned that a figure of 3,000 people would be in attendance over the weekend in his opening speech, and if that number is true it certainly will be a full mad house!

The key topic up for discussion in the airport lounges and in the aircraft this morning was the same ‘leakage story’, which I am quite honestly fed up with. The leaky bucket story is an old one and if nothing is going to be done in the way the creative judging is conducted, then why strum the old guitar? If you have over a 100 jurors who know the result of the category they were judging would one expect anything else?

Oh, by the way… Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar’s move to Bates 141 was the breaking news of the day and that evoked quite a twitter as well. I met him in the afternoon and he looked quite fresh and relaxed and a lot of us wished him the very best in his new avatar. As most of us know, GoaFest is not just about our creative brethren, but as much about our media folk as well, and it was heartening to see quite a handful of them at the Business Conclave.

It is the Media Abbys on the second day of the fest and the spotlight will be on the winners who have come up or created the most innovative media solutions. I salute the winners and I hope too many hearts won’t be broken.

Will the GroupM agencies do as well as they did last year? Well, let’s be patient and see whether we would be in for a few surprises or not?

While on the subject of media, I must give Shashi Sinha and the entire media jury a huge round of applause not just for the extremely professional and competent manner in which the awards were judged and conducted, but also for the fact that there were no bloated egos willing to give out the results to all and sundry.

There are two more people I would like to doff my hat to. The first one is Sir Martin from 70 - the event agency who pulled off nothing but a miracle in shifting the venue at the death hour, and the second one is - Colvyn Harris. From what I have heard, Colvyn has had to go through quite a tough time in pulling off GoaFest this year. Without going into the details, I think Colvyn has proved that he has indeed found politics as an alternate career in his brave initiation over the last three weeks.

I spent a couple of hours at the Business Conclave this afternoon, which focused on the theme – ‘Time to Grow’.

Tom Doctoroff kicked off the Conclave as the keynote speaker with his presentation called ‘Shadows and Light’, but I don’t think he impressed anyone with a JWT China credentials presentation. Methinks he stretched it too far and topped it with a 12 minute ANTA brand lowdown.

I did sit through the Brand and Creativity session as well, which was a few notches better, but at the end of it I still didn’t get what I was searching for... The U2 song is humming in my head now, and I better knock a few vodka shots back before I head for Martins. Tomorrow is another day!

(Pratap Bose is CEO, Mudra Max, and COO, Mudra Group.)