Campaign India Agency Report Card 2011: Taproot India

Ownership: Independent

Key Personnel: Agnello Dias, Santosh Padhi, CCO, partner, co-founder, Manan Mehta, managing partner 

Account won: Part of Airtel and Pepsi  

Account lost: None reported 

This was Taproot’s year. The agency almost resurrected Airtel with the ‘Har Ek Friend Zaroori Hota Hai’ campaign. The campaign drew accolades (almost all the Campaign India A-Listers were wowed by it) and was a unanimous hit within the industry as well. A brilliantly subversive spin which popularised iconic sportsmen’s batting and bowling styles was a trump card for Pepsi at the ICC World Cup. The jury felt this agency has ramped up its caliber demonstrably. They didn’t participate in the Abbys this year, but brought home a Silver from Cannes, two D&AD awards for Conqueror Paper and TOI’s Aman ki Asha campaign, plus a Bronze in Spikes Asia. The Conqueror Paper campaign got recognition in the Gunn Report 2011 as the 11th most awarded campaign in the world. The jury felt that if any agency deserved a 10 this year, it was Taproot. And so the agency headed by the duo of Santosh Padhi and Agnello Dias  becomes the first to get a ‘ten on ten’ on Campaign India’s Agency Report Card. The jury cautioned: Sustaining a 10 won’t be easy perhaps, and we look forward to see how they will sustain the magical madness, next year.
How Campaign India rates the agency: 10

How Taproot India rates itself: 8
We were happy to pull off a great campaign on Pepsi during the cricket world cup early this year, which not only gave us the confidence that we are capable even without the various arms and legs of a big agency, it also provided a sense of confidence to other small agencies that nothing is impossible. We now work closely with Pepsi on various projects. Post Pepsi we managed to pull off another big one in for Airtel. This was the “Har ek friend zaroori hota hai, yaar” campaign which spread like a wild fire among various age groups. Apart from the two really big ones we managed to keep doing great work on our regular clients like TOI, Mumbai Mirror, Nirma et al, with campaigns viz “A day in life of India” (for TOI), the Times of India Chennai campaign, and Nirma women empowerment TVC, to name a few.