Anze Jereb's Golden Drum 2008 Diary

People, events, impressions, creativity... You can see Golden Drum 2008 with the eyes of Anze Jereb, Managing Director of Communications Industry holding.


Monday, October 6th
Old fart knockers of advertising

1st morning at the Golden Drum 2008 is already somewhat different than many others – it's calmer and advertising in new Europe had grown older – obviously. Most of the people I have met are not young and crazy creatives, but experienced old farts in advertising.

We also stopped to meet my parents that happen to live in Slovenia as well. "Are you going to get inspirations?" my mother was asking. Actually not - inspirations in our business are project dependent – need an idea in 15 minutes – DEADLINES!!! So, we're not going to advertising festival for inspirations and ideas, why are we going there? Why do we go to festivals?

Answers will come every day from the festival. First one is – to see what is new in our business, who are the new players and how we'll have to adapt to a new era. Era of 2008-2009. As the 2009-2010 era will already differ.


Tuesday, October 7th
Day Of Meetings

What can I do when all the catalogues are already read, exhibitions are attended and all the nearest coffee-shops are visited? Of course, I’ll search for old buddies, with whom I shared an apartment and a small copywriter's salary about 10 years ago. Nowadays many of them have reached a lot in this business, working in the different countries. But we still meet here, on my native land, at Golden Drum festival.

We discuss everything that has changed around the world for this time. We noticed, that only those from us who have been predicting and dreaming of new technologies 10 or even 15 years ago, made successful career in marketing communications.

The second thesis of our small meetings is in the following: we noticed, that all the intellectual elites of the world nowadays use to sit not in coffee-shops (as it became a custom in Europe since XVIII century), but in blogs. Everything is discussed here: all modern trends, innovations, ideas and stuff. And TV is for masses.


Wednesday, October 8th
The Shortlists Are Issued!

However, the third day of the Festival passes quickly, is chaotic moves and without thinking of winners. The future of advertising and media business is discussed here today. These questions often arise in both reports, and unofficial conversations. The day has begun with the Moscow International Advertising Festival presentation, and ended up with the great National party devoted to Austrian, Czech, Slovakian and Polish participants.


Thursday, October 9th
Creativity

Well, Thursday's creative discussions… It was all about how to break the clutter. Be different, brighter, and do that in more interesting places. Which will bring us again to: a) fusions of media and creative agencies or to b) small expensive units within both previously mentioned types of agencies. I believe that it will be as usually – in huge network agencies you will have 2 more departments to pay, in local agencies – well they will have to be media and creative specialists in order to do what we spoke about in the beginning – how to break the clutter.

Thursday was also interesting in terms of discussions about how "advertising sells" and how "advertising is dead". Bullshit. When you have nothing to say in your PR, then you make big headlines like that and hope to be cited by most of the media as journalists like stuff that looks like a big thing.

Thursday afternoon: weather is as usual, 22 degrees Celsius. The Sun is shining, and by the sea, I have met many digital communications gurus. And again we were discussing the shifting of the budgets worldwide into interactive media - of course bigger part goes for the internet, but mobile phones are becoming more and more important, as they can help building more loyal relations with the brands.
While still few years ago, internet was a small part of success, but now if you check most creative campaigns that were showed - most of them had bigger parts in the internet.

What about effectiveness of ad campaigns in the internet, how should we measure it? Measuring effect solely on the basis of sales is completely wrong. Advertising doesn't sell. Sales people sell (I am repeating myself, but many more colleagues are repeating this). Internet advertising measurement systems are very important for the development of marketing communications anywhere. How much does one contact cost. I believe that Ukraine will soon have similar system of measurements. Ad people from the client’s side should be aware why they need internet. If for sales - then they need internet shop. For all non-FMCG products, internet is becoming more and more important as it is the field of primal information search. And instruments of checking and all the comparative options.

So understanding of the role of the internet in marketing communications became more important than click rates! "Why do we need internet and what should we do there?" This will become a much asked questions in Eastern Europe.


Friday, October 10th
Friday and finalists

Of course when seeing finalists, many questions arise. 1st I should say that without superb execution, no work could come into finals. Only best and most brilliant ideas were presented. Except one little thing. A lot of older ad people were disappointed especially on print finalists, as there are many works, that we have already seen in our lives. Well, these are not plagiarisms, but young creatives very often come up with ideas that we have already seen. And this became a big problem on all ad festivals - many ideas were already seen. I have spoken with many different representatives from different festivals. Some say - you can't fight it, others say - it's your fault - check more books and catalogs on ad history, look into catalogs, check previous festivals and so on and so on.
How should we do it in Ukraine? I think that I will write about this when I come back from the festival.

But now I have to run - to meet more interesting people. To make some interviews with the big network bosses. And to see who will win.Yours Anze from Portoroz

Taken from Pult (http://pult.com.ua/wife.php?id=12006&world=0)