MUMBAI: Goafest 2013, the annual South Asian advertising festival, will be held on 5 and 6 April at the Zuri White Sands in Goa. The theme chosen for this year’s advertising festival is ‘Just What You Unexpected’.

The theme selection is based on the trend experienced last year. “In 2012, the trend was that consumer attention has become very fleeting. Since he uses multiple screens, there is also a phenomenon of over-exposure and thus creativity calls for doing the unexpected,” said Goafest Committee chairman Nakul Chopra.

Goafest was last year opened up for advertising fraternity from all countries in south Asia. This is for the sixth consecutive year the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and The Advertising Club are coming together to deliver Abby Awards, described as the Oscars of the Indian advertising to honour creative excellence.

Abby’s will continue to be open to all who want to participate and membership of AAAI or The Advertising Club is not required.

In 2012, over 225 organisations sent their entries. This year the entries are expected to cross 250 and have invited entries from the first week of February. The Goafest organising committee will be approaching advertising agencies from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka for foreign entries.

This year too there will be a Grand Prix for all nine verticals including Film, Print, Radio, Out of Home, Ambient, Design, Interactive Digital, Direct and Integrated.

There will be a Grand Prix for Media as well. Media awards function will be held on 5 April, together with Digital, Design and Direct. The creative awards will given away on 6 April.

Chopra said Goafest 2013 will focus on strengthening the new initiatives that were launched in 2012. “Last year we opened Goafest to all nations in South Asia and we also brought strong client participation through the Marketing Wizards initiative. Our endeavour this year is to further expand and grow these initiatives, apart from of course celebrating creativity and excellence,” he said.

The Industry Conclave will be held on the day before Goafest on 4 April. According to the Goafest Committee, this year the conclave will focus only on speakers from client organisations to bring perspective to our industry.

“Goafest is the festival for all in South Asia who are involved in creating ideas. Be it other countries in this region, the marketing fraternity or other allied professionals who participate in creating ideas – we want them all to equally own and participate in Goafest. We are taking a virtual conference/road show to neighbouring South Asian countries to increase awareness for Goafest and invite active participation,” AAAI president Arvind Sharma said.

Goafest will continue to have strong participation from senior clients in the Knowledge seminars. “Clients are our equal partners in creating ideas – we naturally strive to have their equal participation in Goafest both as speakers and delegates – this year we aim to attract participation from over 75 client organisations and hopefully over 250 people,” Chopra said.

Shashi Sinha, president of The Advertising Club and chairman of the Abby Awards Governing Council, the joint body of AAAI and The Advertising Club, said the committee will take on board improvements from their past learnings and continue to follow the stringent, well accepted norms for the Abby’s in 2013.

A total of 3,167 delegates had participated in Goafest 2012.