Taproot Dentsu's Agnello Dias takes on additional role of Creative Chairman, DAN India

Agnello Dias, Chief Creative Officer & Co-Founder Taproot Dentsu, will now take on the additional responsibility of Creative Chairman, Dentsu Aegis Network India. 

In his new role, Dias will now also guide and mentor the creative output of all DAN India companies even as he continues his services with Taproot Dentsu.

Dias, CCO & Co-Founder Taproot Dentsu & Creative Chairman DAN India, said, “Taproot Dentsu is now a robust, full-fledged agency, based in two cities and run by a team of capable and talented professionals. In fact, this is the team that has been at the forefront of everything the agency has done for some time now. With the structure now in place and Paddy (Santosh Padhi) leading the way with the rest of the team, it was felt that I could stretch myself to also work with the other hungry and talented teams across the DAN network in India. It is an exciting part of my life’s journey and I hope it’s fruitful for all.”
 
Speaking on Dias’s enhanced role, Ashish Bhasin, CEO Greater South, Dentsu Aegis Network and Chairman & CEO India said, “It is really delightful to add on an additional responsibility of Creative Chairman DAN India to Aggi. The entire creative community in India looks up to Aggi for his tremendous achievements. His mentoring of creative talent across all DAN India agencies will make DAN India an unbeatable creative powerhouse. I am really glad that he has agreed to stretch himself and share his unparalleled talent across the group. I look forward to him chairing the DAN India Creative Council.”

‘Game Banayega Name’
Amidst the sea of ad campaigns for this season of the Indian Premier League, one which has stood out is Star India’s ‘Game Banayega Name’ that highlights ‘emotions of the sport that are human’. 

The campaign from Taproot Dentsu’s Agency on Record (AOR) tells the story of the underdog, delves with real emotions and the untapped potential, which is also the very philosophy of the IPL platform – ‘Where talent meets opportunity’.

The brains behind the campaign - Taproot Dentsu’s Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer Agnello Dias and Executive Creative Director, Taproot Dentsu, Pallavi Chakravarti spoke to exchange4media about how the idea was conceptualised and the difficulties involved. They also shed light on the growth of the digital platform in the past one decade.

On the brief given by the client for the campaign, Dias said, “In cricket and IPL, there is a core viewer and there is a peripheral viewer. While a core viewer knows the game inside out, the peripheral viewer doesn’t know the insides of the game. This campaign wasn’t for cricket lovers but for people who do not have their core interests in the sport. Thus, the task given to the creative team was to reach the wider audiences.”

The challenge was how to make it unique when already many seasons of the IPL have passed, Dias said. The brains behind the campaign tapped something that had not been explored for the last many years - the very philosophy of IPL. This turned into a creative campaign, which has garnered the highest viewership and has been very well received by both IPL enthusiasts and even those who are not avid watchers of the game, he added.
Explaining how the idea was conceptualised, Chakravarti, the Executive Creative Director, said: “The genesis of the idea for this year came from the philosophy of the tournament itself. A Sanskrit shloka, inscribed on the IPL trophy, ‘Yatra Pratibha Avasara Prapnotihi’ translates to ‘Where talent meets opportunity’. That has always been the platform on which IPL has stood as a tournament.” The creative team from Taproot Dentsu brought the IPL’s motto to life and made it the highlight of the campaign.

‘Game Banayega Name’, Chakravarti said, is a colloquial or an Adman’s campaign line for ‘Where talent meets opportunity’ because this is the only platform where new talent gets to exhibit their skills and share the stage with established players, and even at times get upstaged. 

When asked about the difficulties faced during the making of the campaign, Chakravarti said it was mostly the logistical field where they faced issues. “It was the first time that eight representatives from eight teams were shot together on the same day, for the same film,” she added.

Echoing the same sentiments, Dias further said how it seemed nearly impossible to get all the players together. “It was extremely difficult and looked nearly impossible to get them together for the campaign. But because the Star team had worked closely with the BCCI, we were able to get them after a lot of liasoning that Star and BCCI did.”

On the experience of putting the IPL cricketers and the ‘maidan’ boys in one frame, both Dias and Chakravarti called it an unusual experience. “It was for the first time we were doing something like this. For the players, too, it was a rather unusual experience when they were not asked to pose, talk to the camera or do a slow-motion. The idea worked well with the senior players and the maidan boys,” Dias said.

Sharing an interesting insight, Chakravarti pointed out how during the launch of the first TVC, the players, soon after reaching the sets, got onto the groove. “In the launch film, all eight cricketers and all the maidan boys have been shot in the same frame. There was a healthy interaction between them,” she said.

Asked about how imperative it was to keep the momentum, and how different it was from their previous creative campaigns, Dias said, “IPL is probably the single largest platform in the country, not only in sports but across everything. What probably beats IPL in India are elections, which come every five years, but again that is debatable. Otherwise, nothing beats the IPL fervour - be it award shows or anything. Therefore, every campaign for IPL is critical because one needs to sustain that. Now, with the results coming in, we have got the highest viewership this year. We need to think from the point of saturation, we need to keep the momentum going. So, it needs to be a harsh spotlight campaign, whoever does it,” Dias added.

“We received lot of feedback soon after the launch of our first TVC, where we were told that it was unusual,” he said.

Both Dias and Chakravarti spoke about the growth of Digital and how a creative team needs to gauge what is going to work with consumers on the web or digital platform. Dias said that the very core of the creative side or advertising doesn’t change. “What digital does is, it allows people who like your advertising to become evangelists of your advertising. One doesn’t have to change much but do what people like. It is good content which rules the market - Be it digital or non-digital,” he signed off.

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