MAM
The ad trinity attends Goafest 2016
MUMBAI: A couple of a months ago, ad guru Prasoon Joshi pleasantly surprised the advertising fraternity by announcing McCann Worldgroup India’s presence at the 11th edition of Goafest, after three consecutive years of no show from the agency at the Creative Abbys. The agency sent symbolic token entries to honour the festival in all the categories and their delegates participated and attended the fest in large numbers.
Naturally anticipation was high to see if the other heavy metals in the industry like Ogilvy and Mather, Lowe Lintas and Leo Burnett, who had long refrained from attending the Creative Abbys, would also follow suit and rejoin the biggest celebration of Indian advertising under Ad club president Raj Nayak’s leadership.
Though the other two agencies didn’t participate at the Creative Abbys this year either, Goafest 2016 lived up to the anticipation to a certain extent as the top honchos of Ogilvy and Mather and Lowe Lintas graced the conference individually.
The second day of Goafest 2016 leadership summit saw an auditorium full of creatives and media honchos at the edge of their seats listening to Mullen Lowe Lintas chairman R Balki having a tete a tete with film maker Karan Johar on the stage.
When the curious audience couldn’t help but ask him — “What will it take to get Lowe Lintas back to Goafest? — Balki’s quick response was “Better ask Arun Iyer this question” before he gave a knowing smile.
“It’s not about returning to Goafest. Just like Karan is happy just making Hindi cinema, as an advertising agency, we are happy making campaigns that touch people. We are currently positioned in a way that we can say we are not ‘judged’ to be creative. I don’t think we will be back only because it works for us. We are positioned in a way that we can call ourselves good without recognition, we are doing good work given the credentials that come from clients. So when something like this is handed to us by default, it will be foolish to sort of give it away.”
It didn’t stop at that. The trinity was finally complete later that day when the advertising fraternity came together to felicitate O&M India creative director and executive chairman Piyush Pandey on receiving the Padma Shri award.
“We haven’t changed our stand. But, this invitation that has been extended to me pertains to my felicitation by the organisers for getting the Padma Shri this year. I have accepted it and feel honoured to be part of an industry show such as Goafest,” Pandey informed when asked about his presence at Goafest 2016.
The industry witnessed something similar when Prasoon Joshi was felicitated last year at the Goafest 2015. Given the indications, the industry is hopeful that the next edition of the advertising festival will see a full participation from all the industry heavy weights.
Brands
IICT partners with Gativedhi to bring studio production tools to students
New MoU lets students explore AI-driven production pipelines for AVGC-XR
MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) has teamed up with Gativedhi Technologies to give students a front-row seat to modern studio production. The collaboration will integrate Gativedhi’s AI-powered production intelligence platform, Shotrack, into academic programmes, letting students experience the workflow systems used by animation, VFX and gaming studios.
Under the MoU, faculty, students and researchers will get hands-on access to Shotrack through beta programmes, pilot deployments and academic evaluations. This will allow them to explore simulated production pipelines, understand asset management, track tasks and monitor schedules, essentially seeing how complex projects come together behind the scenes.
Shotrack is designed to tackle a key industry challenge: when multiple studios work on the same project, differing internal systems often create bottlenecks, slow approvals and complicate version control. The platform provides a unified production environment, enabling smoother collaboration across distributed teams while generating operational insights and predictive analytics to optimise crew allocation, forecast schedule risks and manage costs.
The collaboration also opens doors to Gativedhi’s wider ecosystem. Upcoming tools include StudioTrack, for studio operations management covering budgeting, recruitment and IT infrastructure, and WorkTrack, which measures workflow efficiency and team productivity across industries.
IICT plans to embed these tools into programmes covering animation pipelines, VFX workflows, gaming production and media project management. Students will also benefit from guest lectures, masterclasses, workshops, internships and research projects that connect academic learning with real-world studio practices.
IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar, said the partnership provides “An environment where production pipeline tools can be explored, tested and refined while students gain insight into how large-scale productions are organised.”
Gativedhi Technologies founder & CEO Senthil Kumar added, “This collaboration introduces students to real-world studio management tools and helps us improve our platform with academic feedback.”
With Shotrack in classrooms, India’s future animators, VFX artists and gaming producers will get a taste of studio life long before they step into one.
