AMBER VERNETTI WRITES- The Festival of Media Asia Pacific (FOMAC), an event celebrating the accomplishments and new goals for the region’s media, took place this week from March 22-24 at the Capella Singapore, Sentosa. The festival gathered over 700 leaders of the region’s media from 22 countries and was a busy three days filled with networking opportunities, talks concerning the condition of the media climate, and celebrating the feats of the industry thus far.
The festival is intended to promote goal-oriented thinking and the discussion of hot topics as mentioned by Charlie Crowe, founder of the FOMAC and Chairman of C-Squared: “We’ve identified some of the most critical issues faced by the media industry in Asia Pacific and brought a diverse range of talented speakers, including a larger proportion of women, to address and debate these topics.”
The 2015 festival agenda (and a rather jam-packed one at that) included discussions highlighting five of Asia Pacific’s rapidly developing economies including Malaysia, China, Philippines, India, and Indonesia. Other sessions explored the Asian Pacific’s growing influence as a “leader in digital media innovation, creativity and in shaping the global media landscape.”
Mobile is the most lucrative and fastest developing form of advertising in the Asia Pacific region and was spotlighted as an invaluable tool for effectively marketing brands to consumers. The list of VIP brand names who planned to attend included Audi, Google, Malaysia Airlines, LinkedIn, PepsiCo, and Visa. Talent development and retention in this domain’s media was another focus of this year’s festival.
Jason Maggs, Co-Creation Strategy Manager for Australia’s Mindshare earned the 2015 Rising Star Award which “celebrates the brightest young talent in Asia Pacific…for their innovation and talent.” This was one award among many others given during the festival. It was quite the Oprah-esque giving of awards rather than gifts.
The festival closed with a gala on the evening of March 24, complete with an award ceremony recognizing the best efforts and talent in the region’s media industry. Play-by-plays of all the festival’s happenings can be re-lived via Twitter by following @FestivalOfMedia and the hashtag #FOMA15.