Goafest 2010: Seminars fail to hold audience attention

GOA: The seminar sessions at Goafest 2010 did not do very well. The first session was the best attended, after which a combination of some less-than-inspiring speakers, a few fairly obvious and blatant self promotion of speakers’ companies and, of course, the lure of fun outdoors saw the audience dwindling over the course of the day.

Will Collin, partner, Naked Communications, was somehow unable to convey the novelty and uniqueness of his company’s approach to the business. He was talking on the freshness of communication, but his suggestions were nothing the audience hadn’t heard before.

Among the more interesting points he made was a caution against chasing “shiny new things”. Too often, Collin said, media recommendations are based on novelty and not necessarily because they are the right choice.
Up next was Michael Constantine, director— global marketing, Prime Focus, who made a case for advances in filmmaking technology to be applied to ads and not just big budget extravaganzas like James Cameron’s Avatar. Between an elaborate showreel of clips with big effects, he said, “It’s easy to dismiss what visual effects do. But it is important to recognise that technology and expertise is available to tell stories that engage with consumers better.”

Tim Mellors, global creative head of the Grey took the audience through an ad-filled presentation on managing the fine line between famous and effective advertising. Ads from Coke and Toshiba to name a few were shown by Mellors to drive home the point that there aren’t too many options to simplicity.

Richard Pinder, COO, Publicis Worldwide concluded the first day’s sessions summarising some of the problems facing the marketing communications universe. Pinder believed “we create ideas that no one wants to talk about.” He declared the age of agency’s as “brand managers” over: “Key in your brand name and add sucks after it and you and your client will be surprised by the results.” The solution was quite simply to change the tenor of brand conversations: try to make them more positive and less negative.

Digital was on the agenda at Day 2, but laptop, mobile and blackberry screens were forsaken for the lures of a raindance. The panel discussion on social media found surprisingly few takers. There were ambitious plans to use Twitter as a medium to question the panelists even as the session was in progress, but it was derailed, ironically enough, by a technical snag. Which was unfortunate because the discussion saw a fair number of interesting ideas on use of social media.

While fielding a question on whether search engine optimisation via Google was more important than social media, Gondal swung very clearly towards the latter. He pointed out: “All personal recommendations are changing from Google to Facebook and Twitter,” lending credence to a point that was made several times through the course of the day: that people are increasingly relying on their peer groups for advice and recommendations. “If I was Google, I’d buy Twitter Live Search,” Gondal said.

Another topic up for discussion was the extent to which brands should get involved in their social media ventures. The consensus appeared to be that marketing managers and even CEOs must take time out of their schedule to personally manage their profiles.

George Michaelides, global leader-invention, Mindshare, had many of the same precious advertising pearls to share. However, his slides had a distinct Andy Warholesque touch to them that added a splash of colour to the rather mundane succession of Power Point presentations.

He added a new piece of jargon to the advertising phrase book: ‘IDYL2S’ or Ideas You Love 2 Share. Citing several examples across markets, he made a case for conversations around brands as opposed to ‘buzz’ which was typically short term and imminently forgettable. He said, “Welcome to the age of talkability. This could become the most powerful medium of all. Looked at another way, people have become the most powerful media of all.”

Big ideas are out and big ideals are in according to Jan Leth, vice chairman, global digital creative, Ogilvy. He said, “The old normal was wonderful, exemplified by the Mad Men,” referring to a popular television soap opera on the salad days of the American advertising industry. He added, “New normal is transparent, messaging is not enough. It has to reflect in behaviour when it comes to companies interacting with employees, consumers or any stakeholders.” This was exemplified by Ogilvy’s campaign for Dove. The soap focused on allowing women to feel good about themselves and thus helped the brand acquire a larger positioning platform. “So when one has a big ideal, one has ideas popping up from all over the place. It could be in mobile, digital anywhere,” he said.