Between Nostalgia & Necessity

As Goafest 2025 returned to its coastal roots, it witnessed industry titans wrestling with AI, consolidation and creative courage even as the festival searched for relevance

- Reema Bhaduri

After an unexpected sojourn in Mumbai last year, Goafest 2025 returned to its coastal roots at the Taj Cidade de Goa. Set against the backdrop of torrential rain, this year's edition, themed 'Ignite, sought to rekindle the spirit of fearless creativity in a time of consolidation, technological disruption and changing consumer expectations.

Consolidation Paradox Walking through the festival corridors, conversations invariably turned to the industry's ongoing consolidation wave as the landscape has been reshaping itself with unprecedented velocity.

Addressing the wave of consolidations sweeping the advertising world, including the Omnicom-IPG merger, Publicis folding Leo Burnett into Leo, and WPP's integration of Grey under Ogilvy, Rishad Tobaccowala, author and senior advisor to the Publicis Groupe, argued that creative diversity will persist despite industry consolidation.

"Creativity will still happen. What has happened is that there has been a consolidation, primarily driven by client needs. Clients are expecting their partners to be able to have massive amounts of capabilities to help them in this technological age,” Tobaccowala explained.

The paradox, as Tobaccowala highlighted, lies in the contradictory demands of clients. While they pressure agencies to consolidate for scale and cost efficiency, they simultaneously engage smaller, independent agencies for specialised creative work.

The sentiment was echoed by Amitesh Rao, CEO of South Asia at Leo, Publicis Health, and Publicis Business, who challenged the prevailing narrative that mergers and acquisitions are stifling creativity. “I do not see any reason even to try to connect structural changes in the industry to creativity. The two are related, but one doesn’t necessarily imply the other,” Rao stated emphatically.