KOCHI: The 44th Global Summit of the International Advertising Association (IAA) will be held at the Lulu International Convention Centre in Kochi from February 20 to 22, 2019. It is for the first time an Indian city is hosting the summit and the presence of the best convention centre in South Asia prompted us to select Kochi as the venue, IAA world president Srinivasan Swamy told mediapersons here on Thursday. The last three summits were held in Washington DC, Moscow and Beijing.
Over the three days, the summit will address the profound question “What’s Coming Next” for leaders among marketers, brand custodians and the media. As many as 2,000 delegates from across the world will fly down to Kochi to attend the meet. Reliance Industries CMD Mukesh Ambani; Unilever CEO Paul Polman; Qualcomm CEO Steven Mollenkopf; UIDAI former chairman Nandan Nilekani; Softbank Group director Rajeev Misra; Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar; actors Amitabh Bachchan and Deepika Padukone will attend the summit, he said.
US tennis great Andre Agassi, former Indian tennis player Vijay Amritraj, Alibaba Group Chief Marketing Officer Chris Tung, Facebook vice president of global marketing solutions Carolyn Everson, Skype co-founder Jonas Kjellberg, BBDO worldwide chief executive officer Andrew Robertson, Ogilvy South Asia Creative Director Piyush Pandey and WPP Chief Transformation Officer Lindsay Pattison are among the industry leaders who will share their mind in the three-day summit. Social humanoid Sophia, the first robot to own a passport, will interact with the delegates.
The theme of the summit is ‘Brand Dharma’. “Nowadays, the customers expect a lot more from a brand than what is offered. It is an era of competition and brands should have more purpose attached to it. We have selected the theme to highlight these aspects. We are hoping to get Prime Minister Narendra Modi to inaugurate the summit,” said Srinivasan Swamy.
The first evening of the summit will feature Kerala food and performance of Kerala artforms. On Day Two, the cultural evening will feature programmes representing Indian culture. The concluding day will witness a fashion show in which 42 models from Mumbai will participate. Fashion designer Manish Malhotra will host the programme. It will be followed by a Bollywood night in which two biggies of Indian moviedom will attend, said IAA India chapter former president Ramesh Narayanan. IAA world vice-president M V Sreyamskumar also attended the press meet.