Goafest 2023: Industry associations show solidarity for inclusive edition on ‘Future of Creativity’

Goafest 2023 is in the news. The Advertising Club’s Abby One Show awards have received a record number of entries. 

Shortlists for Media Abbys and entrant companies whose work has been shortlisted for the Creative Abbys have been revealed. 

Organisers have also lined up an array of knowledge seminars and master classes, explain Jaideep Gandhi, Chairman, Goafest 2023 Organising Committee and Mohit Joshi, CEO, Havas Media Group India and Co-chair, Goafest 2023, in conversation with Medianews4u.com.

It promises to be a truly inclusive show of strength of stakeholders, with other industry associations actively involved in this year’s edition of India’s largest advertising festival. 

Besides the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and The Advertising Club that host Goafest and the Abby One Show at Goafest, the International Advertising Association (IAA), Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and Asian Federation of Advertising Associations (AFAA) are all participating in Goafest 2023, say organisers. Excerpts:    

On this year’s theme…

Mohit Joshi: ‘The Future of Creativity is Here’ is the theme of this year and rightfully so because Generative AI is disrupting all industries, including ours, and we thought this was the most relevant theme. We wanted to ask creators, media specialists and clients how Generative AI is going to disrupt their future working and how things are going to be different tomorrow.

During the three-day event you will see a lot of discussion around how the technology is going to be used positively, towards bettering our output, making our creators better, making our media plans better and making our marketing more targeted. That’s essentially the thought at a larger level.

On interest from sponsors…

Jaideep Gandhi: It has been more than last year. Due to Covid (last year) participation was challenging, but now it has opened up. More than anything I would say it’s a partnership – I would not call it sponsorship. The reason being the involvement of our sponsors in making Goafest better; discussions are happening around what we can do together. All this is creating synergy and taking Goafest to a higher plane. The list of sponsors is very long, the largest ever list so far and it’s a mix from across industry segments. There are people from TV, from print… Even clients are sponsoring this year.

What’s new?

Mohit Joshi: We will have a lot of knowledge sharing and seminars. This year what we have created newly is a new concept called ‘Advertising Rocks’ – we are giving the opportunity to talent from the industry to put their musical performances up on stage in front of everybody. They will be rewarded there if they win. We have three categories of Indian Solo, Western Solo and Band. That’s a new thing. It adds to the entertainment quotient and also gives back to our own people, to tell them that we care for them. 

An inclusive festival…

Mohit Joshi: Inclusivity is in terms of all the different bodies participating. We have The Ad Club, IAA, ASCI, AFAA; all of them are participating. We have taken care to be more inclusive from a gender diversity perspective. It’s also inclusive because it has a good amount of knowledge seminars, master classes and entertainment as well. It’s a very well balanced curation of content.

On speakers and themes…

Jaideep Gandhi: Overall, there are going to be 60-plus speakers, with 15 sessions happening as knowledge seminars and 11 master classes. The knowledge seminar topics are about data-driven marketing, future of creativity, influencer marketing, creative effectiveness and so on.

The highest ever number of master classes are happening over two days. Master class themes include ‘The use of tech in film production’,’ Visual optimisation’, ‘Brand advocacy’ and ‘Storytelling’. 

This year we also have a lot of panel discussions happening, with the inclusion of clients and advertising agencies. It’s also about different associations coming together and making Goafest a central event for the industry.