Indiantelevision.com Team

(4 April 2008 7:00 pm)

GOA: Reversing Marshall McLuhan's famous dictum that "medium is message," Naked Communications co-founder Jon Wilkis said that the message is the medium and that media is all about language and behaviour.

Wilkis was expatiating on the topic "The evolution of media thinking in the 20th century" at the Goafest 2008 Advertising Conclave here today.

The modern way to communicate is to engage, and since there is an explosion of creative assets, the real challenge is to find the right direction.

To exemplify the effect of cultural engagement, he showed the 118 118 campaign in the UK, and said that given India's cultural wealth, it has a huge potential to experience a creative boom.

118 118, primarily seen as a directory enquiries service, had launched an advertising campaign all over UK. The campaign inspired every ad maker with its effective planning and execution and met phenomenal success all over the country, thus engaging every customer's attention.

For Wilkis, the modern media man has to grapple with a number of challenges such as change in client base, core creative ideas and marketing task.

He emphasised the 4D model of communication and said that "Advertising has to be focused through correct channels."

However, he also agreed with Lowe chairman and chief creative officer R Balakrishnan's view that advertising is a hit-or-miss affair, and said that advertising is not everything: "It' not the be-all and end-all of communication."