Why are you into Advertising?
To explore my creative skills which eventually should push the brands ahead in the market place, and there is a huge vacum these days as more and more clients want to experiment with innovative ways to remain ahead.

Did you attend school for fine art or design or Communications?
ya I did my degree in fine art, from Sir J J Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai, which was a 5 year course then.

Were there any particular role models for you when you grew up?
Army, navy, defense was where  always wanted to get into, as my dad was from that background, so I wanted to dedicate my life to defense when I was a kid, which I kept on trying till my 2nd year of art school and finally gave up when I was asked for a bribe during a naval interview.

Who was the most influential personality on your career in Advertising?
there are too many of them, at different stages of my career different personalities inspired me / their work/ their working pattern inspired me.

Where do you get your inspiration from?
Im not a big reader, my experience comes from observation (im feel im a great observer) and interaction with real people, as a kid I explored tons and tons of things, which even my parents are unaware 🙂 which im still using those in this field of communication.

Did you always wanted to be a copyrighter or there was something else on your mind?
firstly im not a copy writer, im a art director and as i mentioned earlier i wanted to get into Army, navy, defense etc, as my dad was from that background.

Taproot India has won the creative mandate for Conde Nast India –  tell us how did you bag this? And also give us a short brief regarding how the campaign would go about!
We were called due to our credentials, we are working on the campaign since its not yet finalised it wont be right to disclose the campaign.

Share with us your moment of joy at CLIO ’10 after winning Gold in the Print category for  Conqueror Paper India for their campaign Face 1, Face 2 and Face 3.
It was a project that we did for transasia papers who are the sole dealer for Conqueror papers in India, they were completing 10 years in india and wanted to communicate to the trade, will did this campaign by using various shades of Conqueror papers to form this typical Know faces across India to meet the task, Its this not only did well amongst the trade but also impressed the jury in almost every award show, this was one of the most awarded campaign in the world that year, it was the only campaign from asia to get a Clio gold, it got a glod and a silver at Cannes, it got 2 golds and a silver and a bronze at the Asian awards show, AdFest Pattya, It got 3 golds and a silver at the Spikes Asia awards show, along with plenty on Nominations at other awards shows like OneShow etc. this campaign featured in various national and international magazines and the latest is it has been selected as the cover for Luizer’s Archive’s Illustration Annual 2010 which will hit the market soon.

What inspired you the most that you created such an amazing campaign for TOI’s ‘Aman Ki Asha’
This campaign was born out of TOI brand team and taproot India team, Times has been doing such social projects for some years be it “lead India”, “teach India’ and I would say this was more cutting edge and courageous and A leader like TOI only have the power to pull it off, we consider ourself to be part of this project.

You have also worked with Leo Burnett and Mudra Communication – how was your experience working in these two agencies?
I learned a lot in Mudra under three bosses, nalesh patil followed by ramesh rabindranath and than Ramnathkaer, it really gave my base a solid base, those basics are very useful today as well
Leo Burnett give me everything that I never expected in my life, a big canvas for me to explore my creativity, Leo Burnett is one of the people oriented networks in the world, where human beings and their emotions are valued, which I feel is very important for a creative guy, and I really had a honor to work closely with some of the greatest mind in the network like Mark Tutsell which is the global Creative Chief of Leo Burnett.

Taproot has also bagged the task of creative communication for brand Pepsi – how did this  happen?
Work, work, work, we did something that was so fresh, relevant and so Pepsi, that they decided to awards the Cricket world Cup project to us.

It is also the first time two agencies have been assigned to work together on brand Pepsi’s campaign – what is your view on this?
The world is changing, so are the working patterns I would call this a new age thinking, I think more and more clients are exploring this pattern/format.

Are you looking forward to working with JWT? How about the clashes of opinions? Do you have any strategy of dealing with such circumstances?
On Pepsi, we are working with Pepsi not JWT, Pepsi has assigned us on the world cup business not JWT.

In a span of 15 years, you have had an eventful run in advertising, with a long list of wins- what?s your take on this?
My journey has been very satisfactory, have learnt a lot from this industry, the field allows you to explore tons of things about people and their behaviour, everyday a new challenge is at you desk, its a very exciting business and time to be in in this field.

Where do you see Taproot India five years down the line?
Keep doing great creative work thats the mantra, we will continue doing that year after year.

Name a brand that needs to be taken care by you and why?
Nirma Detergent – As its a 30 year old brand and have grown with it, have been doing some work for them recently and they are really great set of clients who has a vision for the brand and with right amount of understanding of the brand values and the category I feel lots can be achieved

Your favorite quote.
“do not do different things, do things differently”

What do you think of the state of Print advertising right now. At least here in India,  the released work is most often too sad?
Ya I agree, we had a solid grip on print say 15/17 years back, to name some of them: Mohammad Khan, Arun Kale, Ganga-Nalesh, Elsie Nanji, Alok Nanda, etc. the TV boom came, lots of creative directors wanted to try their hands on, on the new moving medium and completely ignored the grip on print in a span of 5 years, nobody really pushed the print campaigns anymore, slowly the the last frame of the TVC became the 100 cc print ad, or the print ad was briefed to the junior most copy writer in the agency, but clients are realising this is a important medium and we are getting better in compared to what we were 5/8 years back.

Do you think brands who’s advertising wins awards, do well in the market?
Yes I do, fevicol, Vodafone, Times Of India, Happydent are some of the examples which a common man will remember and so will the juries.

What advice do you have for aspiring creative professionals?
Keep your eyes open, be a great observer of life, see, travel, interact and most importantly experiment! experiment!! experiment !!!

Who would you like to take out for dinner?
well, this field haldlt allows to have any personal life, I would rather take my wife and kids out 🙂

What’s on your iPod?
Mostly old classic.

Mac or PC?
Both (office PC, personal Mac).

SANTOSH PADHI
Chief Creative Officer & Co-founder
TAPROOT INDIA, MUMBAI INDIA

Popularly known as ‘Paddy’ Started his advertising career 16 years ago with Mudra (DDB) Mumbai. Completing an eventful 10-year stint at Leo Burnett Mumbai, where he was a Executive Creative Director and National Head of Art (India), 2 years back left the Leo Burnett network to start his new creative venture ‘Taproot India’

Worked on some of the prestigious global brands like: McDonalds, Johnnie Walker, Heinz Tomato Ketchup, The Times Of India, Hallmark Channel, Hitachi Air Conditioners, Fiat India, P&G Tide detergent, Luxor Writing Pens, Perfetti Van Melle etc

Currently Taproot India is working on some of the national and international iconic brands like; 
The Times Of India, National Geographic Channel (India and HongKong), Fox History and Entertainment Channel (India and HongKong), Nirma Detergent, Mumbai Mirror, The Crest Edition, UTV, Bloomberg UTV, ITC, DSP Blackrock Mutual fund,  CCS (Sri Lanka) etc.

ACHIVEMENTS

In the last 2 years, Taproot India has risen to become one of India’s most prominent independent creative agencies in India winning Asia’s only Gold Clio in 2010 and was ranked India’s best performing agency at Cannes also declared the No. 1 Independent agency from India and rated as top best 20 Independent agencies in the world by Cannes survey, Again last year Taproot India was declared as best performed Indian agency at Spikes Asia with 4 gold’s and 3 silvers and also topped the table at Adfest with six metals as well.

His Conqueror Paper print campaign was one of the most awarded and celebrated print campaigns from Asia last year
Santosh Padhi holds the record of most number of Cannes lions (11) & also most number of One Show Pencils (4) by an individual Indian creative from India.

Last year in a row in 2009 and 2010 he was voted as the No. 1 creative person from India, by the Campaign Brief Asia magazine
.
He was voted as the 3rd best Art Director in the world, in a survey conducted by Campaign (UK)

Paddy is also been a proud holder of the ‘Art Director of the Year’ title for 3 years in a row at the local Indian award show in his early days.

In 2008, his Luxor Highlighters campaign with more than 120 international awards across all award shows, making it one of the most awarded campaigns in the world.

Besides being part of the team that led the creative renaissance at the Leo Burnett, his creative leadership took India to bag “Agency of the Year” title twice in the  global Leo Burnett network in 2003 and 2008. In 2008 he also managed to make Leo Burnett India the No.1 creative agency in India in the local award show.

He has won over 200 International awards and more than 250 local awards,
with two Grand Prix’s

In 2008 he was honored with “ZEE ANANYA SANMAN STATE AWARD” by the state government, for his contribution in the field of communication.

In 2007 he was featured in THE WEEK magazine, 
as one of the emerging Indian in the field of communication

In 2006 he was featured as the YOUNG TURKS of advertising by CNBC

JUDGED BEFORE

He has been a judge on various international advertising festivals like this the Clio’s in 2010, the Dubai Lynx in 2010, Adfest Pattya in 2009, New York Festival 2008, London International Advertising Awards in 2008, Adstar Busan (Korean) award in 2010 and many local awards shows.