By Jitender Dabas
One of the most significant events for the advertising industry happens in the period of April-June every year. It started back in 2008 and has become one of the barometers of the state of the advertising industry in India. It has gone from strength to strength in the last 15 years with increased participation. I’m talking about the IPL, which has become the equivalent of the Super Bowl in India.
There’s also another event that happens every year during the same period and is significant to the ad industry. It started in 2006 with a lot of promise but hasn’t really had the same kind of run as the IPL. I’m referring to our own Goafest. Started by the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) almost 18 summers ago, with inspiration from its much-celebrated global cousin, the Cannes Lions, it has had its own share of success and challenges.
It’s back again next week in Goa, triggering memories of the time it started with the fanfare and the promise it held at that time. Indian advertising had its own festival, and there couldn’t have been a better place than Goa to have it.
Fast forward to 17 years later as it prepares for another edition, a lot of things have changed – in the advertising landscape as well as around the festival. Many big agencies and their people now stay away from the festival. The ABBY awards night (hosted by The Ad Club and held at Goafest) is no longer the biggest night in advertising. That glory now firmly belongs to the EFFIE awards night (and EMVIES for Media), where all the top agencies as well as clients tend to participate. Delhi/Gurgaon (now Bengaluru) has grown to become the new epicenters of marketing and advertising. Therefore, in 2023, a large number of young people in advertising have no idea what Goafest is all about.
But I hear that attempts are being made to bring credibility, stature, and participation back to the festival.
Every industry needs its marquee events to showcase its best. Every industry must have forums where it can present views. Every industry needs festivals to celebrate itself and make its people feel happy and proud to be a part of it. I am an optimist and truly believe that Goafest can be that for advertising and marketing in India.
But what’s held Goafest back? What could it do to become the IPL of advertising and marketing?
I think the biggest problem lies in the fact that Goafest’s identity and raison d’être seem locked into the awards, i.e., the ABBYs. It almost looks conceptualized as one big award night stretched over three days. Because it is inspired by and therefore modeled on Cannes, it builds ABBY awards as the centerpiece of the whole event. Even this year, the benchmark of success that is being touted is the increased number of entries in the ABBYs. Therefore, the partnership with One Show is to increase the credibility of the awards.
Ironically, the very awards have been the Achilles heel for the festival in the past. The controversies around the scam work, the biases in the judging system, and often the question around the relevance of the creative awards and resultant indifference of the marketing fraternity to them (unlike the EFFIES & EMVIES) have all led to the progressive decline of participation of agencies in Goafest.
But are awards like ABBY the only way to showcase an industry’s best? Perhaps it is time to reimagine what Goafest can be. And I feel the correction needs to start at the point of inspiration. It’s time we looked at other industries and their showcase events for inspiration.
Almost all industries have their showcase events – in India as well as globally, and some of them are hugely successful. From the mouth-watering CES of the consumer electronics industry to the glitzy Auto Shows to even Mobile World Conferences that the world waits for. All of them are hugely successful and heavily participated in. Yet none of them are anchored as ‘award shows’ for those industries. Even the Cannes film festival is not seen as an award show but the biggest gathering of cinema in the world. Yet these events are able to showcase the best these industries have.
Can Goafest borrow something from them? What if all the agencies could come and showcase the best they have in the manner they wanted to? Imagine all the big agencies from Creative, Media, Digital, and Commerce all given showcase platforms/spaces to showcase their best works/case studies and their creators talking about them. To say the least, it would be a mouth-watering invitation for anyone in advertising as well as marketing. As an advertising professional, I wouldn’t want to miss it for anything.
There are other kinds of industry events that we can look at. Instead of the beaches of Cannes, if we look at the snow at Davos, we can find guidance for the content and conversations at Goafest. Advertising as a business today is at a crossroads. And AI (artificial intelligence) is not the biggest threat to the advertising agency business model. The industry’s biggest event needs to take responsibility and lead in bringing the spotlight on the issues that the industry is facing.
Why isn’t advertising attractive as a career to young people anymore? AI or Procurement – which is a bigger threat to advertising as an industry? The right valuation of creativity. Is the business/remuneration model of advertising making it unsustainable? From retainers to project-based relationships – the demise of long-term client-agency relationships and the decline of brand ownership. Where will the next set of advertising leaders come from? How do we make advertising a happy place to work? Having sessions with Bollywood actors, cricketers, famous people may allow us to forget the issues that are troubling us, but we are missing a trick if we aren’t using Goafest to force conversations and discussions on the issues that will shape the future of our discipline.
But let’s not forget the awards completely. Because awards give us something to celebrate. Done right, they act as motivation for young people. But we must admit that the controversies around creative awards will continue to stay. Awards being won for work that is not mainstream or real will continue to dissuade many agencies from participating in such awards. I would suggest that to increase the equity of Awards at Goafest, we should add the EFFIE & EMVIE nights to Goafest. That will bring credibility as well as the marketing fraternity to Goafest. We surely need more marketers at the event. Goafest truly needs to become a festival of advertising and marketing.
Last but not least, to become the hottest gathering of the advertising & marketing fraternity, we need slightly cooler temperatures. Having it in the off-season surely helps agencies get more people to Goa, but I would take rain over sweat any day to achieve that.
(Jitender Dabas is currently the chief operating officer (COO) at McCann WorldGroup India. Views expressed are personal)