Anant’s blog: Celebrate the width of India’s performance

Creativeland Asia has had a great day at Cannes, with three shortlists: one for Parle Frooti, one for Medimix and a third for Hippo snacks.

Taproot has two shortlisted pieces, both for Transasia.

DDB Mudra has hopes with Pantaloon Retail Furniture Bazaar, Cancer Patients Aid Association and Bangalore Traffic Police.

Bates 141 will look out for Staedtler Pens and Virgin Mobile.

RMG Gurgaon had made an appearance with their entry for Fuji Film.

O&M and BBDO India have won a metal each, opening India’s account at Cannes.

Then you have the usual suspects: O&M, JWT India, Leo Burnett India and McCann in the mix with a number of shortlisted entries.

That’s big; the number of agencies that have made an impact at Cannes. You have the large agencies and the small ones; the old agencies and the new ones.

You have a lot of scam and a lot of real work.

To me, the standouts so far are Creativeland Asia, BBDO India and Taproot .

Creativeland, because the majority of the wins and shortlists they have seen in the last year have been for real clients and solutions to real problems. BBDO because their creative solution for Gillette has seen them win India’s first metal for PR. Aggie and Paddy have proven that their own skills and craft are more than intact even after they left large network agencies.

Raj Kurup, Josy Paul and the twosome of Agnello Dias and Santosh Padhi have proven that advertising remains a business of talent. All have left large agencies (Josy joined another large one in BBDO, though the India operations are still not quite large) and, in their new avatars, continue exactly where they left off.

As they win (or get shortlisted) at Cannes, or even in Goa their confidence in themselves will increase – as will the respect with which clients and prospective clients see them.

The new tribe will continue to chip away at the business of the larger agencies. The three that I’ve mentioned have already made a mark.

Perhaps the agencies who lose talent – especially of proven outstanding talent such as those mentioned above – should ruminate on why they left.

As importantly, they should spend some time trying to figure out how to minimize loss of creative talent.

When you lose outstanding creative talent, you also lose business – and some metals at Cannes.