Terry Savage, chairman, International Advertising Festival, Cannes Lions, is in India to promote the recently instituted Spikes Asia Awards that are to be held in Singapore. With 26 seminars and six workshops from some of the world and region’s leading speakers, Spikes Asia is a learning and development opportunity for Asian advertisers and marketers.

India has made its presence felt at all major Advertising festivals. From the number of jury members increasing to winning metals, India has clearly become a creative powerhouse.

Terry Savage adds “Take last year’s Lead India campaign by JWT that won an Integrated Grand Prix at Cannes. It was a social campaign and it tried to bring change. Compare this with the Obama campaign that won this year. These are essentially the same – world class campaigns that strike a chord universally, irrespective of cultural boundaries.”

The IAF chairman also feels that global slowdown will accelerate the trend of agencies becoming selective about award festivals and the not-so-premium awards functions will be under threat. However, festivals that provide serious learning, networking and a platform for meeting with peers are the ones that will flourish.
Cannes is the mother ship and is the premium advertising festival globally. Last year Cannes instituted the Middle East festival – Dubai Lynx and a European festival – Eurobest. And this year they are rolling out Spikes Asia. A regional festival allows us to deal with issues that are pertaining to the region.