Takeaways from Goafest 2008

GoaFest 2008 is the annual conclave of the advertising industry in India. Although I did not attend the fest, I read about it on e4m and agencyfaqs and key takeaways for me would be ..

1. Clients expect advertising agency to move further from just advertising. They expect advertising agencies to understand their businesses, environments they operate in and act as a partner rather than a service provider.
2. Clients want agencies to be more accountable and agencies should take a proactive role rather than a passive one.
3. There is bit too much specialization and hence fragmentation happening in the industry. There are departments at agencies to take care of BTL campaigns for young adults in cateogry A cities going to the top 100 colleges in India and who have more than 10000 bucks to spend per month. This kind of depth is desirable by all but what about the larger picture? Business objectives rather than getting too creative? How about generating sales for a change?
4. At the cost of sounding like an old-schooler and offending a lot of creative people, I think that there is nothing more important than generating sales. A lot of creative people forget this and plunge into the art.
5. Internet as a medium is still in very nascent stages. It will be years before it gains acceptability. More thoughts on Internet as Advertising Medium in India on my wiki.

Finally, I liked D. Shivakumar’s session the best at the conclave. I wish I could meet him and pick his brains.

This can also be seen as a a fast summary of all the serious business that happened at GoaFest apart from all the parties, awards, discussions over drinks and regular glamor surrounding the event.