Winners of the second All-Russia competition of the social advertising contest "New Look" went to Slovenia due to a special prize awarded by «Zavod Consulting» agency. The winners were Vitaly Gaditski from Krasnoyarsk and Sergei Kazantsev from Tomsk. Polina Abdullina  - Zavod client manager – was accompanying both winners in Potoroz.

This year the annual international advertising festival «Golden Drum» took place in Slovenia on October 5 - 8. The event has a 17-year history of bringing creative people in the new Europe together.

The participants of the festival attended work-shops on marketing trends and listened to lectures given by acclaimed representatives of the advertisement market. The most popular trends in Portoroz festival dealt with social responsibility and friendliness towards nature and interest in local culture and mind set. Interest in above features can give a spur to creative advertising ideas. "Make culture your strategy. Dig inside. Think local, manage global".

"The basic idea of the festival is definitely that the future of advertising is associated with young - says Polina Abdullina. – Young persons can generate unexpected and extraordinary ideas virtually turning the world upside down. And surprisingly this is fully consistent with ideas of the "New Look" contest where our joint work began".

On the first day of the festival the participants of «Golden Drum» scrutinized the issue cautiousness indicating that the conservatism kills the most striking and unexpected ideas at the early stages of each project. It was suggested that large network agencies were reluctant to make an effort to devise and offer customers strikingly new concepts. There were opponents, however, who maintained that this was rather the fear of rejection of "unusual" ideas on creators' end resulting in making routine decisions.

"Customer should like working with you. With each team member. The customer should understand who will implement the project and that these people are working for success of the customer's brand name"- said one of the best lecturers and speakers of the festival, Micky Denehy (the Founding Principal of EACA International School). Mickey explained how to present agency to client in appropriate manner. It is similarly important to do your best to present your creativity as to present yourselves.

Also Micky Denehy expanded what was the best format to sell your ideas and get more wins. According to him what we say is important, but even more important is how we deliver it.  Idea is the content. Presenting your ideas should be consistent with pre-set strategy.

It was interesting that every presenter mentioned Apple and Steve Jobs. Not a single workshop went without mentioning Steve Jobs' accomplishments and his personal impact.

In several lectures it was maintained that the concept of a focus group grew outdated. There are no focus groups. "Quite often people do not know what they want until you expose them to new concepts" was the famous quote from Steve Jobs. Therefore, there is no point to account for focus group opinion when you work on advertisement project.  The whole campaign should be hinged on a brilliant idea which will bring into the process the maximum number of people. The audience should not only be involved in the process, but sometimes even create the final product. Example - The Skate Wash (Japan) - a video clip on YouTube.

"Our main conclusion: «Golden Drum» is a young festival designed for young participants - says Polina Abdullina. We fully support the festival's ideas as they are pretty much consistent with our vision. The main thing is the both of our winners were inspired by the works of the winners of the «Golden Drum» festival; they are stimulated by attending this event and they plan to continue working in the social advertisement area".