This Q&A first appeared in DNA Money edition on Monday, Mar 25, 2013.
Agnello Dias, co-founder and chief creative officer, Taproot India, one of the most promising creative agencies in India, says 2013 will be an exciting year for his company. In conversation, he spoke about the industry trends and company's plans... Excerpts from the interview:
On key trends in advertising especially on the creative side.
The most striking trend I see in the Indian advertising industry is that there is a great focus on realistic portrayal of people’s lives, emotions, etc as opposed to a fantasy release. This approach is only getting bigger by the day and advertising will become more raw and hardcore like in the real world as compared with advertising earlier, which was very glossy.
Impact on creativity due to increase business pressures
I think the quantity of work some agencies take up is actually much more than is possible to be done in that time and things get rushed, as a result there is less time to execute the work. This leads to creativity suffering and that’s not good for the Indian advertising industry. The fraternity is not taking a note of it and is just carrying on with their approach to business.
On campaigns being currently worked on
Current projects include a few campaigns for Pepsi and 7UP in addition to working on a series of campaigns for clients for the upcoming IPL series.
On billings and growth expected in 2013
I cannot disclose financial details pertaining to billing and growth. Having said that, we are hoping to do some exciting work this year and add new categories to our portfolio of clients. For instance, India’s leading cables and wires company Polycab has recently released their first television commercial (TVC) campaign that was conceptualised by us. Home appliances is another category that we will be involved in.
On rolling out of NourishCo campaign
Yes that has started rolling out but since the product is being initially made available in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, the campaign will first break in these two states some time next month and will eventually go national.
On traditional and new media debate
I think that change will certainly happen eventually but India has a very vast and varied mindset unlike the West where it is very homogeneous. So the change will not happen overnight and the upper end will move first, which is already happening. So while it would take one year for the change to take place in a homogeneous mindset market, my understanding is it will take 7-8 years for the entire industry in a market like India.
As for mobile advertising, people who are more technically inclined or technologically friendly would lean towards those products before actual conceptual creativity comes in play. That will be the generation when the technical side of it will be specified and genuine creativity will follow. Like in case of print to television, initially there were not so much of the creative people doing film or television but people who understood the medium better and not necessary creative. Now it has completely moved to creative people actually working in that area.
On sweeping awards year after year
We try and do our best every year and sometimes we do well. At our stage every year is a big year. So there are times when our best works are perceived by everyone in the fraternity as good and sometimes they are not.
On the impact of slowdown on business
When the storm hits the sea, the bigger ships get impacted first. Same is the case with the advertising industry. The larger agencies get impacted first by the slowdown and we are too small in size to get affected.
Follow Ashish K Tiwari on twitter @ashishktiwari
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