India is in the midst of a prolonged festive season. Dussehra, Diwali, Ramzan around the corner, Christmas a little farther away, a great monsoon, a booming stockmarket, huge corporate profits, continual upward revisions of the rate at which the economy will grow this year, and, at once both the cause and the effect of all these, a widespread feeling of optimism.

Falling, as it did, right in the middle of this milieu, Ad Asia, the 23rd edition of Asia's annual advertising conclave ended up being more a celebration of India, and Indian advertising (aren't we winning awards at international ad festivals?) than a serious forum on the state of advertising in the continent, and more pertinently, the country. There were film stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, former and present beauty queens, a few real ones, elephant polo, music, and liquor, lots of it. "I am here to learn," laughed Ajay Kapila, the marketing head of JK Tyres. "Learn how to have fun."

It wasn't that the event was missing the big guns. You can't get much bigger than Reliance's Mukesh Ambani, A.V. Birla Group's Kumar Mangalam Birla (the two shared the dais for the first time ever, an event that was considered historic enough by the pr agency retained to issue releases to the effect), HLL's M.S. Banga, former McKinsey managing partner Rajat Gupta, and management guru C.K. Prahalad.

For international flavour there were former Coca-Cola marketing chief Sergio Zyman (he spoke live through a video-link), marketing maven Jack Trout, one half of the successful Trout and Ries partnership that invented popular marketing terms such as positioning and guerrilla marketing, Creative Director of San Francisco's largest agency Goodby and Silverstein (think ads such as hp's '+' campaign), Jeff Goodby, Brand guru Scott Bedbury, founder of Batey RedCell Advertising, Ian Batey, and direct marketing patriarch Lester Wundermann.

Unfortunately, everyone was so busy celebrating Indian advertising-O&M's Piyush Pandey, who has just been named the chairman of the jury at next year's advertising jamboree at Cannes was the star of the show-and networking that the few good speeches went largely unnoticed.

DM guru Wundermann: Print advertising, he swears, is more 'in your face'

"This was a great event for young people like me because I made so many vital contacts in the media industry and revived so many old ones," said Ritu Memani, Managing Director of Mindspace Advertising, one of the few people under 30 present at the conference. "Not all the sessions can be good, but I will take back certain things from some of them," said Rajeev Dube, Vice President, Tata Motors. "Overall, this was a very good opportunity to catch up with old friends and learn something from it."

The event's biggest failure was the bias towards electronic media in the work on display. "It is unfortunate that there is only television advertising on display here," rued Goodby. "Some of the most creative work happening worldwide is in print and outdoor." "Print is more in your face, you can't ignore it," explained Wundermann.

The emphasis on showcasing the best of Indian television advertising seemed to have backfired; most foreign delegates caught ads on the tube in their hotel rooms and were shocked at their vapidity. "The best Indian advertising is extremely good," said Jureepom Thaidumrong, Creative Director, Saatchi and Saatchi, Thailand. "The rest has some catching up to do." "To be honest, most (Indian ads) on TV are average or slightly below par," echoed Bedbury.

Then, there were the hard numbers that no one wished to, well, advertise. India may be one of the fastest growing advertising markets in the world, but it spends just around 0.4 per cent of its GDP on advertising which translates into an industry of around Rs 10,000 crore. Brazil does 1.6 per cent, the US 1.3 per cent, even Thailand, 0.9 per cent. Expectedly, some of these countries have become global advertising powerhouses. Marcello Serpa, the Co-CEO and Creative Director of Brazil's Almap/BBDO highlighted this when he spoke about the international campaigns being executed for Pepsi and Volkswagen in Brazil. India is just getting there: for instance, Prasoon Joshi, a notable absentee from Ad Asia and the creative head of McCann's Indian arm oversees all Coca-Cola campaigns across South East Asia. But going by the ads exhibited at Ad Asia, Pakistan looks to be the western-most point Indian advertising has travelled to.

Did some of India's finest advertising minds have fun at Jaipur? They did. Did members of the advertising and marketing fraternity discover long lost friends and make new ones? The answer has to be in the affirmative. As for whether the Jaipur meet will play a role in improving the quality of Indian advertising or help the industry go global, your guess is as good as ours. One thing is certain: with the economy booming the industry can't help but grow this year. That's reason enough to keep the bubbly flowing.

-Kushan Mitra

The Stamp of Scandal
A quick primer on l'affaire Abdul Karim Telgi.

Mastermind Telgi: Just another day in the office

What is the Telgi Stamp Scam?

Welcome back from Mars. The Telgi scam is about the sale of fake Government of India stamps and stamp papers and spans several states (there are cases pending against Abdul Karim Telgi in 10 states). The estimated size of the racket is around Rs 30,000 crore. The most worrying thing about the scam is that it continues to play itself out although the facts first came to light in 1996. That was the year Telgi was declared a proclaimed offender. However, he was arrested only in late 2001. Even then, the man continued to run his scam. It was only after the Maharashtra Government instituted the Special Investigation Team (SIT) in November 2002, and the Mumbai High Court took a keen interest in the progress of investigations, that things hotted up. Now, several senior policemen and politicos are being investigated for their links with Telgi.

What was Telgi's m.o.?

Stamp and stamp papers are to be purchased only from registered vendors. So, Telgi acquired a stamp vending licence in 1994. Then, using his connections, he had some printing machines at India Security Press in Nashik declared obsolete, and acquired them. He also recruited employees of ISP who knew the intricacies of stamp paper printing (size of rolls, suppliers of paper and ink). By day, Telgi's press functioned as a routine one; by night, it spewed out stamp papers.

Telgi distributed the stamp papers through his connections, even hiring MBAs to sell them at a discount to bulk buyers (largely corporates). He lost his licence to vend stamp papers in 1996, but continued his trade through other vendors. There's nothing to tell fake stamp paper from the real thing (it was, after all, printed on a machine from ISP), and Telgi's trade flourished.

How can the government prevent a repeat?

One, by clamping down on unauthorised channels that sell stamps and stamp paper. Two, and this will be the most effective way to prevent a repeat, it should mandate that all 'stamp' payments be made directly to it, thereby doing away with stamp paper altogether. And three, it should remove the stamp duty in cases where the cost of printing and distributing stamps is more than the value of stamps themselves.

Is the Union Government considering amending the Stamp Act of 1899?

Unfortunately, no. It has washed its hands off the whole affair by proffering the excuse that the collection of stamp duty is a state subject. "If someone produces counterfeit stamp paper in some state, there is little we can do about it," explains an official in India's Ministry of Finance. "It is basically a law and order issue."

Is business hit?

You bet. Corporates figure prominently among the bulk buyers stiffed by Telgi. And the stamp papers may have been used for most routine and extraordinary business transactions, M&A agreements included.

What's the way out?

Well, some states like Karnataka are contemplating validating all existing transactions, the legality of the stamps and stamp paper be damned. However, that may not be legally possible. "Under the Stamp Act, all transactions have to be done on a stamp paper purchased from the government treasury or from a government authorised vendor and printed by the government; there is nothing under the law that can legalise counterfeit stamp paper," explains Diljeet Titus of law firm Titus & Company.

-Narendra Nathan with Ashish Gupta

FIRST
EMR Or Bust

In a move that took most people by surprise, last fortnight, India's Controller General of Patents and Trademarks awarded an exclusive marketing right (EMR) to Novartis for its anti-cancer drug Glivec. That means Indian manufacturers of the same drug (through different processes) like Natco Pharma and Ranbaxy will not be able to manufacture them anymore. The EMR gives the original patent holder Novartis the sole right to manufacture and sell the drug in India. The underlying message: India is committed to the January 1, 2005 deadline instituted by World Trade Organization for moving to a product patent regime. "The government's decision is a signal that it will stick to this deadline," agrees Phalgun Joshipura, an analyst covering the pharmaceutical sector at SBI Capital Markets. That's evident in its efforts to amend the Indian Patent Act 1999, to bring it in sync with a product patent regime. The Glivec EMR will probably be challenged in court (Natco has already articulated its intent to do so), but transnationals that spend around $800 million a pop on developing a drug should be happy at the Indian government's willingness to protect their intellectual property. However, it's bad news for some 20,000 small pharmaceutical companies that thrive on ripping off blockbuster drugs such as Glivec. These companies had hoped that the Indian government would duck the product patent issue for a while. India's pharma majors such as Ranbaxy, Cipla, and Dr. Reddy's have already factored in product patents by moving into the global generics (off patent) drugs market. And with some of them engaged in their own drug discovery process, the product patent regime has come into force at the right time.

-Sahad P.V.

World's First Wireless Lake
Kashmir's Dal Lake goes hi-tech.

Deepak Mirza (L) with Saleem Beg: Look Ma, no wires

It is an irony of sorts that the world's first lake to become a WI-FI hotspot, Dal, is located in a state where the internet is just over a year old and mobile phones, a few months old. Attribute that to a desire in Deepak Mirza, a director at Chennai-based Dax Networks, and a Kashmiri by birth, to do something for his state. And attribute it to the state's tourism department which saw it as an opportunity to reassure tourists that all was well in terrorism-hit Kashmir. "The wi-fi connectivity will give tourists greater confidence," says Saleem Beg, Director General, JK Tourism. The state may have seen just 200,000 visitors last year, down from a peak of a million in 1991, but Beg is confident that better times are just around the corner.

Dax spent around Rs 10 lakh WI-FI enabling the 10 square miles lake, but didn't charge the state anything. The company provides connectivity from the houseboats to a hub further inland from where a local ISP takes over. Now, Mirza wants to WI-FI enable other water bodies in the country for a fee. Talks are on with local ISPs to replicate the model in Tamil Nadu's Kodai Lake, Uttaranchal's Nainital Lake, Andhra Pradesh's Hussain Sagar, and the backwaters of Kumarakom in Kerala. The service itself will be provided by the ISP, but Dax hopes to attract the attention of the local tourist departments, and earn some Rs 40 crore over three years, from the sale of WI-FI infrastructure. Charity pays.

-Nitya Varadarajan