IAA Silver Jubilee Summit: Behind the scenes with PG

IAA Silver Jubilee Summit to be held at Kochi on Sept 3-5 is rightly being touted as one of the biggest marketing and communication events in India. To give you a flavour of the speakers at the summit, among them are Sachin Tendulkar, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and Shahrukh Khan. While these might add X factor to the event, there are many experts from India and abroad who would discuss various nuances, issues and way forward for the industry. To name just a few:  Cindy Gallop (Founder and former Chair of BBH, USA and founder of the MakeLoveNotPorn, New York), Michel de Rijk (CEO, Xaxis, Asia Pacific), Sanjiv Puri (President FMCG, ITC Ltd), Shailesh Rao (Vice President – Asia Pacific, Latin America & Emerging Markets, Twitter), Ralph Simon (Chairman & CEO, Mobilium Global Group, London) and many more.

The driving force behind the mega summit is Pradeep Guha, Summit Chairman & Area Director, IAA Asia Pacific. Adgully explored various aspects of launching a summit of this grand scale with him. Excerpts: 

Adgully (AG):We would like to congratulate you on the massive scale at which IAA silver jubilee function is being organised. How did you go about planning for it?

Pradeep Guha (PG):This was a program that we had actually planned for an earlier date but since we were already doing many things including playing an important role in a new concept called ‘IAA House at Cannes’, we decided to fix September 4th and 5th as the dates. However, due to the fantastic response from our stellar speakers we had to begin on the 3rd evening itself.

We formed a ‘High Table’ with very senior people, took their inputs on the theme and speakers, and then went about getting the right speakers.

AG:To begin at the beginning, why did IAA decide on Kochi as the city hosting the event?

PG:Location is an important feature for everything that needs to be marketed. It was felt that Mumbai and Delhi had been done to death as conference venues. Kochi has a cachet built up by the God’s Own Country campaign and its inherent verdant beauty. It also gives us scope to throw in a boat ride for all delegates and give them a flavour of Kerala cuisine. Importantly, the Southern States have never had a marketing/advertising event of this scale and we have been trying at IAA, to reach out to under-represented geographies.

A number of prominent professionals from across the globe would be addressing the audiences. How could you convince so many of them to participate in it?
This was a combination of several factors. Personal contact, corporate influence, the draw of India as a market of great potential…all these contributed to helping us get these speakers.

AG:There is a lot of focus on digital in the three day event. What would you attribute it to?

PG:Actually we have tried to keep the content category-agnostic. Yet, the importance of digital in its myriad aspects is difficult to ignore. 

AG:What kind of audience participation are you anticipating?

PG:The response has been amazing. In the South itself we are expecting about 600 registrations. Large corporates in Mumbai have registered over 10 delegates each. That is very encouraging. The combined push from Delhi and Mumbai will help us cross 1200 delegates.

AG:Can you tell us something about IndiAA Awards? How would they differ from other ad awards in the country?

PG:First, they are only for advertising that has worked hard in the market. That means it is not for campaigns created only for awards. Secondly, there is no entry fee. We are running this as an important industry initiative and not as a business. Thirdly, the jury consists of top business leaders (Chaired by Harish Manwani) who, in their time, have judged (and some of them do even today) advertising every day of their working lives. Finally the awards would be presented to all the co-creators of the work - the client, the agency, and any other like the media, PR, events agency, as the case may be. It would be a privilege to win an IndIAA Award. Also, we are awarding work by an established client as well as a game changer. The winners would be called Movers and Shakers, respectively. All these are ‘firsts” in the awards scenario.

AG:Pradeep Guha is a name known for perfection and excellent events. How do you manage that?  

PG:I don’t know about all that. I just try and do my best.  In fact, Congresses and Summits of this scale can only be done through collaborative effort.  The role of my colleagues Sundar, Ramesh and others can hardly be over emphasized.  In fact, without Sundar, there would be no summit.