IAA Global Marketing Summit sees full house

Day-long summit focuses on 'Future-proofing of brands' with special emphasis on digital marketing; ends with speech by Narendra Modi



Sohini Sen | Mumbai | October 1, 2013

The International Advertising Association (IAA) hosted the Global Marketing Summit on Monday, September 30, 2013 in Mumbai. The summit coincided with the 75th year of IAA, and was the 22nd of the Indian chapter, and it saw speakers from different facets of the marketing industry, all stalwarts in their fields.

The IAA is the world's only globally-focused, intergrated advertising trade association. The by-invitation-only members list includes people from advertising agencies and media.

Srinivasan K Swamy, President, IAA - India Chapter, said, "The last one year has been very exciting for us at IAA. It is increasingly important to create a safe brand. If ten brands get launched, only two brands succeed, some just about survive and a bulk of them just disappears. Many established brands do not stay as well established, they lose their momentum. There is a need to refresh these brands in whatever way is needed to stay in the mind of the consumer. It is in this concept that I thought of the talking about 'Future-proofing your brand' and what better way than to have leaders from across the globe to talk about this subject."

"At IAA we believe in bringing to our industry an opportunity to meet, interact, learn and secure. We have a line-up of experts from across the world who are at the forefront of marketing today," added Monica Tata, MD, HBO India, and Treasurer and Secretary of IAA-India Chapter.

While the star speaker of the summit was Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat and BJP's prime ministerial candidate, there were several others sharing their marketing experiences through the day.

The daylong session started with a talk on 'Reimagining marketing in a digital world' where Tyler Bryson, General Manager, Marketing & Operations, Microsoft SMSG, shared his knowledge about challenges Microsoft is facing and how they are tackling it. Technology and digital continued to be the flavour of the day as Ashley Benigno, Director, Creative Expression, Global Brand Strategy & Marketing Creation, Nokia Finland, and Will Platt-Higgins, Director, Global Account Partnership, Facebook USA, took the stage. While the former spoke on how to create a rapport and connect with the emerging youth in an increasingly young world, the latter spoke illustrated the pros and methods of marketing and building brands on the popular social networking site Facebook.

"IAA as an organisation, not just in India but globally, has been sponsoring a lot of events around digital communication and digital marketing. Primarily because the time has come for that kind of a shift – in fact, the shift has already happened. Digital communication today is no longer something which can be ignored," commented Pradeep Guha, former IAA President and Managing Director of 9X Media.

Financial marketing was beautifully addressed by Sanjeeb Chaudhuri, Global Head - Marketing, Standard Chartered Bank, while attendees were enlightened about rural entrepreneurship by Arunachala Muruganantham, CEO, Jayashree Industries. Wally Olins, Chairman and Co-founder, Saffron Brand Consultants, UK, spoke about 'What a brand really is' while a panel discussion on the 'Future of sports and movie marketing' was participated by Farokh Balsara, Partner and Markets Leader, EY India, Ekta Kapoor, Managing Director & Creative Director, Balaji Telefilms, Shailendra Singh, Jt. Managing Director, Percept, Ritesh Sidhwani, filmmaker, and Venky Mysore, CEO & Managing Director, Kolkata Knight Riders. The daylong summit concluded with a speech by Modi on the building of 'Brand India'.

Sohini.Sen@BestMediaInfo.com

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