AdAsia 2011: 'Adkatha' chronicles the Indian advertising journey

Day 1 saw two books being launched – one authored by Anand Halve and Anita Sarkar, and the other by Pankaj Ghemawat

Neha Saraiya | Delhi | November 2, 2011

On the sidelines of bustling sessions on Day 1 of AdAsia 2011, 'Adkatha', a book that tells the story of advertising from the pre-1950s and covers the journey over six decades, was launched.

Written by Anand Halve, Co-founder, chlorophyll brand consultancy, and Anita Sarkar, an ad veteran, the book has been conceived and published by Bal Mundkur through his Centrum Charitable Trust. Gerson da Cunha provided project direction of the book.

The hardbound book provides an overview as well as insights into the special fields of top 18 professionals in India comprising names like R Gopalakrishnan, Alyque Padamsee, Rama Bijapurkar, Anvar Alikhan, Vikram Sakhuja, Rakha Nigam, Ameen Sayani and Dopar Sopariwala, to name a few.

On the idea behind the book, industry legend Mundkur said, “It astonished me that there wasn't such a book, going back to the beginning and coming up to date.”

To this, Gerson da Cunha said, “The story has been told by two distinguished writers, Anand Halve and Anita Sarkar, decade by decade. They have presented advertising as a function of the socio-economics, politics and culture of the land as well as the magic of the media and the bazaar that it is.”

Madhukar Kamath, MD & CEO, Mudra Group & Chairman of the Organising Committee of AdAsia 2011, said, “Both Adkatha which looks back on the first hundred years of Indian advertising and AdAsia 2011 which stands at the cusp of the future, will go down in history as important milestones in the journey of the Indian advertising industry.”

The other book to be launched was 'World 3.0' by Pankaj Ghemawat, global strategist.  The basic premise of the book is that when one talks about globalisation, people tend to overstate how connected the world is. According to research by Millward Brown, over 60 per cent of brands are known in more than one country. However, only 3 per cent of the brands are recognised in more than seven countries.

Ghemawat writes that companies should look at the CAGE framework – cultural, administrative, geographical and economical aspects – when going from one market to another as these four parameters vary significantly in different markets.

In a nutshell, this book in many ways is the anti-thesis of the book 'The World Is Flat' by Thomas Friedman. According to Ghemawat, “The world is not flat but it has a lot of cliffs and plateaus in between.”

Neha@BestMediaInfo.com

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