43rd International Film Festival of India

The above is the first press advertisement of the International Film Festival of India currently being held in Goa, this appeared in the Times of India on November 16, 2012. This was followed up by two other ads one on November 18, 2012 and the other on November 20, 2012, that is on the day the festival commenced. These ads created by Directorate of Advertising and Visual publicity (DAVP) are visually appealing; personally I quite like them from the point of view of design.

The first ad is some sort of a teaser and it says, ‘it’s coming…’  

The second ad says, ‘43^rd International Film Festival of India, Goa   20^th – 30^th Nov, 2012 at Goa   it’s here…’

The third ad says ‘43^rd International Film Festival of India   20^th – 30^th Nov. 2012  Goa’ and ‘100 Years of Indian Cinema’

Second ad. November 18, 2012

Third ad. November 20, 2012

 The questions that comes to one’s mind are:

1.       What is the objective of this ad campaign?
2.      What are they trying to communicate?
3.      To whom (target audience) is the communication directed at?
4.      What is the target audience supposed to do after seeing the ads?  

After the seeing the ads the answer to the second question, as I understand, would be that the 43^rd International Film Festival of India is to be held from 20^th – 30^th Nov. 2012 in Goa and the event is being organized by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India and the emblem is a peacock. The ads give no other information, such as what kind of films will be shown, who are the makers and which countries do they represent. The ad does not even mention where in Goa the Festival will be held and what are the venues, what arrangements have been made for those who are interested in attending the festival. The ads do not seem address any target group, they are more like public notices. If the ads were created with a specific target audience in mind, the communication would have been very different; it would have addressed the needs of that target group. If I am a movie lover, which I actually am, how do these ads help me? The first ad in the series is a teaser so it gives no information, but the other two also do not give any useful information that would help me. To my mind the ad campaign should have begun a month before the event, so as to allow sufficient time for movie lovers to plan their trip to Goa. I do understand that ads cannot be loaded with too much information; well, then what are websites for? I looked for the web address of the Festival in the ad but I could not find one, no QR code either. In fact a special website should have been created for this event.

Although I have pointed flaws in the advertising of the film festival, I am sure that the festival must be drawing movie lovers from different parts of the country. I also know that those attending the festival made arrangements long before the ads were released, so obviously they were informed about the event through other sources and not the press ads. Now I come to my first question regarding the purpose/objective of these ads, is it merely to tell the general public that the 43^rd International Film Festival of India is being held in Goa and nothing more. Why have these ads? What purpose do they serve?    

 Now coming to my last question, on seeing these ads what is one supposed to do, head for Goa? No, I don’t think so; it is too late to make travel arrangements. The ads have been designed well, there is no doubt about it; they do attract attention but do nothing more for the movie lover who would have wanted to attend the Film Festival.