ad:tech India: The good, bad and the ugly memoirs…

Neha S | Delhi | April 29, 2011

The maiden ad:tech event in India was anticipating a crowd of 900 people but the number reached out to 1200, fetching an over-whelming response from the marketers, advertisers and brands. Still, the twitter was flooded with comments stating the unfortunate transformation of the global event in India in terms of too much emphasis on the indinisation part of it! Thus to clear off the air, beneath it we rewind the clock a bit and revisit the two days bag full of mixed reactions from the industry before we gear for the next ad:tech scheduled for Feb 2012……

A lot appreciates it, some dis-approves and the rest nurture suggestions… catch the glimpses here:

Sandeep Singh Arora, Executive Vice President - Marketing, Cola, PepsiCo India

“I think it's a great forum having industry professionals, developers, content providers, brand owners and media owners to share the experience and share how industry is moving forward. And the other great thing is putting all of these people together. As the big thing about any industry is that it works in partnerships and a forum like this helps in navigating such alliances.”

Anuj Kumar, Executive Director, South Asia, Affle

“I think that middle management of any company or brand should also be made to participate in such events rather than just the MD or CEO sitting and attending the sessions as these are the people who have already acquired a lot of exposure and knowledge. The information should be passed at all levels, thus a different fee structure for participation should be floated and implemented in order to facilitate maximum participation at the all the relevant levels of the organisation.”

Vishal Gondal, CEO, Indiagames

“I think a lot of relevant people have come in, thus it has been a good networking session. Also, the quality of content is good and above all, nobody is pitching. I think the other good thing is that industry lacks event like this as what has been happening till date is that the mobile have a different seminar, the video have their own summit, the apps have their own sessions but this event has organised the various verticals under the same ecosystem. However the only change I would have loved to bring is its venue-It should have happened in Mumbai rather than Delhi.”

Beerud Sheth, CEO, SMS GupShup

“I think overall it was a very well attended conference with amazing number of start-ups participation. Infact I have been pleasantly surprised and have attended first conference in Delhi especially catering to the digital medium. But at the same time, we should understand that for summits of this magnitude, it is often a struggle that they want to cover some topics but they are bound by many factors. Also, location is a bigger password globally then in India. Thus we should make such events contextually more relevant but if you are targeting to sell soaps and shampoos, (afterall the majority of the ad money goes in to marketing of these products), then it's slightly off track. Adding to it may be a session on rural India would have added to the learning curve.”

Joshua Maa, CEO, MAD house

“I have attended ad:tech at china and let me tell you that the structure of the event is not so different. However the only difference that I noticed was in terms of market dynamics. As here in India the people are more attracted towards mobile and take it as a more important medium as compared to China. However, some minor technical glitches happen in every event but on a broader perspective, for a first time, it was a pretty good event.”

Valerie Rozycki, Founder & CEO, Zipdial.com

“I think ad:tech has been fruitful to us as we probably cracked three clients. But having said that I also feel that the content of the speakers was more focused on one sector of the market, that is quite niche in its approach. Because if we talk at ground level, majority of the Indian market still has a 500 Rupees Nokia phone looking for a compulsory features like flash light and a FM. But that's what the real consumer is. Thus if we talk of innovations in mobile through the digital platform then we should also focus on mobile technologies catering to these markets.”

Mrutyunjay Mishra, Director, Juxt

“When I first walked in here, just after an hour I tweeted- 'Internet ke saare paapi yehi hai'. But that doesn't mean that the angels are missing. But, on a more serious node, I would have expected a little more of participation from the marketers and brands. Also I don't like the simultaneous sessions as a listener I felt like missing one session at the cost of another. Thus, probably next time they should make it three days event and have one session at a time.”

Have your say? Write me at Neha@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com