Campaign India Agency Report Card 2010: Happy Creative Services

Type of agency: Advertising

Company ownership: Independent

Key personnel: Kartik Iyer, director / co-founder, Praveen Das, chief creative officer / co-founder, Akshay Ananth, director, business development 

Accounts won: Diesel, Timberland, Wipro Technologies, iCube Mobiles, F Square, REBI, Bentley Drugs

Accounts lost: Wipro Ego

Diesel was Happy’s calling card in 2010. The agency fought off larger agencies in landing the fashion brand. The Diesel work seems to have brought in additional brands into their portfolio- in the form of Timberland from parent company Reliance Brands.  It remains to be seen what the agency can convert from this piece of business in terms of billings. Happy’s team strength went from 16 to 22. They hired Akshay Ananth and Mark Flory from JWT. The agency also won iCube Mobiles, apparel brand F Square, REBI and Bentley Drugs.  For Happy, the challenge will be in expanding further beyond the confines of Bangalore and landing business based out of other cities as its location tends to be a limiting factor from a perception point of view. It is understood, however, that Happy is considering these options. 

How Campaign India rates the agency: 8

How Happy rates itself: 7

2010 has been truly a year of growth for Happy. We grew emotionally and physically as an organization. We grew from 14 employees to 22.  We won full scale advertising clients in telecom and the fast food business. We launched Diesel. We met Renzo Rosso. We won TImberland. We turned 3 years. We were approached by an international agency for a possible partnership. We attended the cannes festival.Thanks to the meltdown, we decided against sending entries to the awards last year. The decision paid off, as the resources were put into training and team building. Akshay Ananth joined us to head our business development. Our positioning of being a true idea shop has been well received in with our projects ranging from identity / brand creation to conceptualizing a Skybar.  We are very happy with our achievements this year, given the market’s revival. After a crucial year, we are all set for the next big thing.