In Goafest was a fantastic opportunity for us to take our message to the who’s who of the Advertising world. April 3 & 4 were extremely well spent days in the critical phase of our company, not because it was on a pristine beach in Cavellosim with beer, water sports, dancing, and good food abounding. Almost everyone that powers the Indian Ad industry forward was there!. The knowledge & learning seminars featured five talks from key global players - Sir John Hegarty, Jean Marie Dru, Neeraj Nayar, Sean Finnigan, and Dan Wieden.

We brought along a 1-page brochure which distilled our key message to Brands, Agencies & Media Houses, and made our 30-second elevator pitch easier. One side of the page had a picture and key messages, and the other side some corroborating quotes from a paper produced by the IBM Institute for Business Value (Thanks to Manu for forwarding it). You can take a look at the front and the back of the 1-pager.  The essence of the message was “Don’t just talk. Listen”. And boy, is it gratifying to see that the #1 of the “Five new rules of Marketing” according to Simon Clift, Unilever’s CMO, is “Listening to consumers is more important than talking at them“.  See the whole article.

Its terrific to see such strong validation among influencers in the industry.  The theme of “engaging” with consumers also ran through all the talks at Goafest, particularly the ones by Neeraj Nayar and Sean Finnigan.

We hope all of this helps us bolster our case that we need to make to Marketing professionals who are faced with challenging and turbulent times.