Who Said What - the Low-Down on the First Ever LIVE Asia Summit @ #wowAsia2016

by  EVENTFAQS Bureau Business Events | June 28, 2016 | News

WOW Convention Asia 2016 LIVE Asia Summit

The first ever LIVE Asia Summit took place on Day 2 of WOW Convention Asia 2016 at Pullman New Delhi Aerocity. Hosted by Gitikka Ganju Dhar, the Summit was designed to be the definitive meeting platform for organisations and professionals involved in the LIVE Entertainment Industry in Asia to tap the true potential of the business through shared learnings and collaborations.

Through 5 carefully crafted sessions addressing key issues and identifying niche areas of growth, LIVE Asia Summit produced many insights to guide all those directly or peripherally involved in the LIVE Entertainment industry. EVENTFAQS brings to you 22 of these, from every speaker present.

1. From the Keynote Address by Harindra Singh, Chairman & Managing Director, Percept Limited:

“Entertainment can never run out of fashion. If we can get millennials off their screens and to engage, then we can get these brands on board. If you ask someone which brand’s ad they watched, they may remember the ad but not the brand. But if you ask him which brand was present at an event he attended even 6 months ago, he’ll remember because he would have engaged with the brand.”

From ‘All Eyes on Live’:
 

2. Brian Tellis, Director, Fountainhead MKTG

“We’re more and more living in the LIVE events economy. Everyone is professing that LIVE entertainment is an integral part of the economy. Just 1-2% of events are IPs, but 20% of the revenue comes from it. There’s 2 ways to look at it – from a brand perspective and from a customer perspective.”

3. Alex Valladares, Senior Marketing Manager, MTV

“LIVE is really important in what we do, largely because it feeds into what we shoot, and what goes on screen. When a brand comes to us, not every event can be as big as a Sunburn. So the sociability of the event is very important – we need to get to screenagers using new tools like Facebook Live and Periscope.”

4. Vikrant Pawar, Show Director & Head – Live Entertainment, Disney

“In LIVE entertainment/theatre, the audience is a participant – they’re almost a performer. And this is what distinguishes the LIVE space from other media. Rather than just witnessing something on screen, the audience gets to be a part of it all.”

5. Rajat Uppal, National Marketing Head, 93.5 Red FM

“We started with radio, but then we thought why don’t we create IPs. We already have the current music, so we can have events and then amplify it on air.”

6. Sanujeet Bhujabal, Senior Director Marketing, Sony Music

“We are doing campaigns on social media, but the loop doesn’t close there. It’s not just about managing shows and entertainment. But how can I optimise on the talent?”

7. Malcolm Raphael, Business & Creative Head, BrandScope

“If you visualise the IP as a brand to begin with, it provides the opportunity to actually carry the brand to various products. It’s important to manage the look and feel, and the tonality of the IP. You need to have a much larger vision than the platform itself. Investors only look at your idea, so you are only limited by your imagination.”

From ‘Entertainment IPs: to Build? To Borrow? Or Just be Inspired!’, here’s what came through
 

8. Swaroop Banerjee, CEO, Event Capital

“There’s a lot of new markets that have opened up in the last few years when it comes to IPs.”

9. Shubhra Bhardwaj, Founder & Director, Ferriswheel

“It’s about the total experience, top to bottom, a level of technical finesse, creative and marketing understanding, creating a brand and pushing it forward.”

10. Brenda Munsterman, GM, Sensation Amsterdam (ID&T)

“India is a very big market and there’s a lot to explore. With Sensation, the question we got asked a lot was ‘why Hyderabad?’ We got a lot of support from the local government which wanted to put the city on the map, which is why we picked Hyderabad.”

11. Thanush Joseph, Director – Marketing, 70 EMG

“There was a community of bikers that needed to be brought together. This is the basis for all IPs – you find a community that needs a platform. With IPs, we also wanted to get our people to learn how to ‘own’ things. So we took ownership. It offers a chance to work with our clients as partners. Otherwise earlier, we were just agencies, one of the vendors. We needed to move up.”

12. Manuj Agarwal, CEO, Percept Live

“What we realized quite early on is that sponsors need reach in the Indian market, both vertical and horizontal. Earlier we thought potential lied only in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, but then we realized there is potential in smaller cities and towns as well. With IPs, there’s also a move from spirits and alcohol brands to consumer brands. So there’s a lot of new markets that have opened up in India.”

On ‘The Future of Live’,
 

13. Girish Raj, Business Head, Insider.in

“We’re all keen on where the next generation is going”.

14. Ashvin, Gidvani, M.D & Producer, AGP World

“It’s all about corporatizing your content. You have to know who the decision-makers and who the facilitators are in a company you approach.”

15. Parmesh Shahani, Head, Godrej India Culture Lab

“There have to be other models of engaging with culture. We’ve managed to reimagine the corporation as a cultural space, not just a sponsor to be kept at arm’s length. There tends to be a lack of imagination, not among content creators, but among sponsors and the government. No one wants to think of themselves as eco-system creators for a period of 10-15 years. There’s a lot to do in terms of widening the eco-system through training and so on.”

16. Neeren Tiwari, Director, Funbars Hospitality

“The primary reason enough large venues paces aren’t developed is real estate. Also, people love to frequent places that are seemingly busy. Managing larger spaces is a big challenge. Look at Blue Frog – you have this huge space, but sometimes there are just around 50 people there. This is a huge deterrent. Also, it comes down to how much revenue you can get from F&B.”

17. Jaideep Singh, Senior Vice President, LIVE Viacom 18

“It’s all about passion, the rush you feel at the end of an event. So it is the risk and the scale which make that possible. We scaled up events as IPs with a particular brand at the centre. The other think we took care of was content. That is what takes the brand forward. You have to have insight, a passionate team, and a vision of at least 5 to 10 years.”

And from the final session of the day, ‘Sponsors Now Want to Own It!’
 

18. Shaju Ignatius, Business Head – Optimal X, The Times Group

“It seems like it’s no longer about the ground touch point alone, but amplification.”

19. Mahesh Kanchan, Marketing Head, Carlsberg

“You need to look at what your objectives are. You need to look at what your ROI is. It doesn’t make sense to just have your logo on a T-Shirt. You don’t need to be a sponsor at a big event because you don’t need those eyeballs. So if you can ‘own it’, that’s best. With Lakme Fashion Week, consistency has paid off. You need to look at ROI from a long-term perspective. Any brand can replace another in an IP, so the integration has to be stronger.”

20. Anshuman Goenka, Category Head – RTD, AMEA Region, Barcadi

“There is a need to get the brand at an earlier stage of development of your IP. Pick a few brands which reflect the same ethos you think you want to create, and then co-create the IP. One of the reason’s we’ve stuck with NH7 is because we’ve managed to showcase value. The LIVE engagement platform has a certain ethos. And so does the brand. So the two have to come together really well. We’re also looking at through the line – how do we take that property and build a 360 degree marketing plan around it.”

21. Mandeep Malhotra, Founding Partner & CEO, The Social Street

“When brands come and own IPs for less than 2 years and then wash their hands off it, I’m unable to build my brand because I was building the brand’s brand. So this is a constant issue we face as IP owners. The only way we can sustain a brand-owned IP is if IP owners manage to sell their proposition to the organisation or the brand, rather than to the Marketing Head as a person.”

22. Neeraj Seth, Head of Marketing, HTC, Middle East and Africa

“Whether it’s regional, national or in Dubai, we’ve consciously decided that we only want to ‘own it’ when it’s short-lived. IP owners need to understand my product cycle and my business cycle. Whenever an agency come to me with an IP, I feel they’re there for a quick bargain; and it’s true that they are in 98% of cases. So we wait till the end and then pick what we want to do. Every brand is a brand for ROI; brand for purpose is a philosophical aspect.”