Nepal’s renowned platform for the advertising and marketing industry gathering, Brandfest has come back to woo the Nepali industry with its 2018 edition.
Brandfest 2018 in Kathmandu brought together experts in related fields from across the world to Nepal, forming a platform for sharing their views, knowledge and expertise to the Nepali audience.
The two-day event on December 07-08, 2018 saw eminent personalities and renowned industry experts speaking about the global marketing scenario and the existing marketing theories.
Brandfest was termed ‘catalyst’ and pivotal for Nepal, considering the country’s growing status in the global arena.
Themed “Brands in the Future”, Brandfest focused on effective ways how a brand shapes the public mindset & markets, converting that into a strong brand-customer relationship.
“The gathering with others in the industry gave me an opportunity to delve in the minds of these knowledgeable speakers, know their thought processes and learn. This year as well, like previous years, we had a star-studded line-up of speakers who mesmerized the audiences with their professional prowess and talent sharing experiences,” says Ujaya Shakya, Managing Director of Outreach Nepal, the creative partner of Brandfest 2018 alongside title sponsor ‘Asian Paints’.
Speaking on the occasion, Neil George, Author of the book ‘Building the Perfect Beast’, shared his views about changing trends and consumer preferences.
Ashraf Bin Taj, President of Marketing Society of Bangladesh, stressed on the need to maintain human touch in branding alongside maintaining human values while embracing technology.
Ramesh Narayan, Vice President of International Advertising Association (IAA) presented some interesting India-based ad campaigns that highlighted social causes.
Another speaker, Founder of a private organization, urged on the need to maintain authenticity and simplicity in the increasingly-impatient world, citing big brands with clean and simpler designs.
The second part of the conference on the Day-2 began with speakers dwelling more on Artificial Intelligence and its growing influence on modern-day branding and advertising.
Annicia Manyaapelo, Founder and Creative Director of Nich Luxury Africa, spoke on luxury branding stating that the luxury brands are increasingly looking at exotic cultures in their marketing strategy.
“Children are the most difficult target for any brand and you cannot afford to be boring with them,” said the award-winning creative director duo, Kainaz Karmakar and Harshad Rajadhyaksha, from Ogilvy Mumbai.
“If we re-evaluate the client-agency relationship as that of mutual learning and growing, we may end up having a ‘win-win’ relationship with all our customers.” said Ambi Parameswaran alias Ambi, a renowned brand strategist and Founder of brand-building.com.
“It was an educative immersive experience for not just me, but I am sure for all those who participated in this two-day event. There were many new learnings, refreshing ideas and new perspectives that were shared by the speakers at Brandfest Kathmandu which has enlighten all of us to prepare for the future,” said Shakya sharing his experience at the event.
This sixth edition of the #Brandfest conference saw a total of nine speakers from UK, South Africa, France, India and Bangladesh, who presented their ideas and knowledge on the related matters.
Events of this kind are important for Nepal at this point of time, considering the country’s growing inclination towards developing innovative concepts and welcoming more business opportunities in all fields through the usage of new-age tools such as start-up trend, social media usage and growing internet base, among others.