AAAI to organise 'Beyond the Horizon' seminar on 21 and 22

Televisionpoint.com Team
Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) will organise a seminar, 'Beyond the Horizon', on July 21 and 22, at Hotel Hilton Towers, Mumbai, as part of its Diamond Jubilee celebrations - 1945 to 2005.

The seminar will follow the inaugural function on July 21 and the AAAI-Premnarayen Award ceremony and some insights by admen. The seminar is being supported by The Hindu, Aaj Tak, Headlines Today, Eenadu, Eenadu Television and Mumbai Mirror.

Andrew Robertson, president & CEO, BBDO Worldwide, New York, will deliver the inaugural address. One of the youngest to be elevated to this global position, he took over as the CEO of BBDO Worldwide at the age of 43. The 17th AAAI-Premnarayen Award, for the year ’04, will be conferred on Goutam Rakshit, managing director, Advertising Avenues, for his outstanding contribution towards the growth and development of professionalism in the advertising industry in India.

Ranjan Kapur, country manager, WPP India, will open the session on July 22 with his keynote address which will be followed by series of discussions covering today’s hot sectors of FMCG, services, media & entertainment and evolving sectors which include automotive/lifestyle, healthcare & retail. While the session on the FMCG sector chaired by Sam Balsara of Madison Communications will have CK Ranganathan of CavinKare and Saugata Gupta of Marico as speakers, the session on the media & entertainment sector, chaired by Arvind Sharma of Leo Burnett will see N Ram of The Hindu and Peter Mukerjea of Star India discuss issues and challenges faced by the media and entertainment industry, as well as their impact on ad agencies and related streams.

John Cahill of McCann Healthcare (Singapore) and Sudipta Sen Gupta of Cafe Coffee Day will be the speakers at the session on the Evolving Sectors chaired by Alan Durante of Mahindra & Mahindra. The session on the services sector chaired by G Krishnan of TV Today will have insights from S V Prasad of Birla Sun Life and Atul Bindal of Airtel.

The response from the agency panel will have Sunil Alagh of SKA Advisors in the chair, while Piyush Pandey of O&M, Madhukar Kamath of Mudra Group and V Shantakumar of Saatchi & Saatchi will respond with their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Srinivasan Swamy, President AAAI, said, "This seminar is the first of the four seminars scheduled to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee. We have a series of other events planned as well to celebrate our Diamond Jubilee."