At 50, Santosh Padhi wants to disrupt advertising once again

With Taproot, Santosh Padhi and Agnello Dias showed India's advertising industry how provocative creative work can propel a fledgling independent agency to the top tier of the ad world and beat industry giants at their own game. 

There was the zeitgeist ruling Har Ek Friend Zaroori Hota Hain for Airtel, the tear-jerking Pooja Didi for Facebook, and the unsettling I am Mumbai spots for The Times Of India's Mumbai Mirror newspaper; three of the agency's standout campaigns that persevered in the shallow age of social media and defined advertising of their time.

It has been 16 years since Padhi co-founded Taproot in 2009; three years into its launch, Cannes Lions ranked it as one of the world's 20 best independent agencies. 

Since then, Padhi has seen ad group Dentsu acquire his agency in 2012 and then merge it and other Indian agency brands into its US-based creative agency mcgarrybowen in 2021. He left his agency and the group in that very year.

He was all set to start his independent agency journey again after his six-month gardening leave at Taproot Dentsu; he had spoken to a few seniors about it too but come 2022, he was hired by global indie creative giant Wieden+Kennedy (W+K) as its chief creative officer for India. He took up the role and established its ninth W+K office in Mumbai.

Two years later, in a shocking development, it shut its operations in the country, 17 years after it started in 2007. 

This is not a sorry tale about one of India's best art directors. No. It's about the Cannes Lions winning, marathon running, and cricket-loving Padhi, who, at 50, is prepping his return to advertising with a new agency.

"50 is just a number on my Aadhar card. This great industry and the lovely people with whom I worked and produced great satisfactory work in the last three decades have actually made me feel a lot younger than my Aadhar card number."

"The minute you put such eclectic creative people in a glass building, there's no culture, no chai tapri, no vada pav, no misal, no thepla. I want a character; I want the local dogs and vibes around the agency. This is what Bombay is. We have grown with such a beautiful environment, and creative minds work when you have such wonderful setups around you."

Santosh Padhi

He is a self-confessed workaholic. "I realised I can't survive without work," he told yours truly in 2022. It is one of the reasons he decided to start up once again. Padhi also believes this move is the best way to give back to the industry that has blessed him with a career, fame, money, and a creative satisfaction he cannot find anywhere else.

"Many seniors are leaving the industry, and there are not enough creative leaders around to handhold brands and clients. I seriously want to give it a shot and do brave, cutting-edge, creative brand work; it may happen or it may not happen, but I will be happy that I took a shot at it and didn't give up when the industry needed it the most." 

He returns to the advertising world, despite his worries, at an exciting time with numerous creative storytelling platforms and young brands, particularly those founded by 30-somethings and venture capital-backed, approaching agencies to demand: "Boss, make my brand famous." 

Creative disruption indeed 

Padhi's new agency does not have a name, nor does it have an office. "I co-launched Taproot when there was a gap in the business. So, it is extremely important for me to understand today's markets, what the clients are willing to invest in, who is investing where and who is profitable. Unless I do a deep study, it will absolutely not be right to start an agency.

"The restrictions at network agencies make you think 'If I had my own agency; I could do this and that.' For instance, can you, at the big networks, say no a global client? You cannot."

Santosh Padhi

What he can reveal is the agency will be "multi-dimensional and new-age", focused on solving brand problems creatively. He will lead the agency, but the ownership will be distributed amongst its key people. "I strongly believe in this collaborative world today, and I want the agency structure also to reflect it."

Bangalore-based creative company Talented follows this model; its main co-founders, Gautam Reghunath and PG Aditya, led the creative agency Dentsu Webchutney at the same time Padhi helmed Dentsu Taproot.

Padhi acknowledges the several mediums, be it influencer, social media, or digital… which agencies have to deal with these days, he believes they are there to help tell the brand's stories better, and they are not a threat or competition if you understand and collaborate well. 

"Some of my co-founders and I are doing a deep market study and will also be doing a few courses to get a grip on something that we aren't aware of, as this industry is ever-evolving and we better be with the movement," he states as one of the ways he's gearing up to solve today's client challenges. 

There is one thought Padhi has in the middle of his mind: "I want to do something that the world should notice once again." He will not let his agency become "one of those 187 agencies out there".

To make it happen, he is banking on consistency. "Only when you do it not once, not twice, but thrice, will you be noticed. Unfortunately, people are doing it in bits and pieces," says Padhi. 

"I want to do something that the world should notice once again." 

Santosh Padhi

He deems WPP's Ogilvy India as the agency to beat because it has consistently balanced its creative reputation, handled big brands well, put out good work, and won awards. "Consistency brings out that character, and how long you hold it defines you."

Networked beginnings 

Reading about Dentsu's treatment of Taproot can make one assume he's not the biggest fan of agency-holding groups. Well, he is not. "There's a different culture at network agencies, after a point you feel you cannot do so many things and at giant organisations, it takes a lot to change even the smallest of things," he states.

Padhi knows this because he cut his teeth at network agencies before co-launching Taproot. He started his career at Mudra (now DDB Mudra) and later moved to Leo Burnett, where he spent 11 years growing from senior art director to executive creative director. 

He met Dias at Leo Burnett, who later left for WPP's JWT (now VML). Padhi remained at Leo Burnett. However, both felt the itch to do something and it led to the birth of Taproot. "The restrictions at network agencies make you think 'If I had my own agency; I could do this and that.' For instance, can you, at the big networks, say no a global client? You cannot."

Taproot took off during the recession in Mumbai's Byculla region. "We started in a beautiful office with low rent. There was little to no work for the seven or eight of us. We used to play cricket in the office for two hours. We cemented the spot where the batsman tapped his bat on the floor twice."

The agency, however, picked up steam pretty soon with work for clients such as PepsiCo, Airtel, and The Times Of India. It had many suitors in the form of big networks right from its first year, reveals Padhi.

Dentsu and Taproot

The two co-founders chose Dentsu because they felt it wanted them more than they needed the ad group. At that time, the group was struggling with its creative business and wanted Taproot to lead it.

Such was the might of Taproot's creative prowess that the group agreed to the duo's demands of ‘first right of refusal’—the agency can refuse to work on the group's global clients.

Second, Dentsu waived its three-year gardening policy (a founder can't leave and start a rival company after acquisition) to six months for Taproot and even agreed to not force the Dentsu name before Taproot. Most importantly, the agency did not have to move its office to Mumbai's Devchand House, where all Dentsu agencies were parked. 

"I told Ashish Bhasin (then Dentsu India Group CEO) that if you are forcing, I'd be the first person to resign," says Padhi and reasons it by explaining, "The minute you put such eclectic creative people in a glass building, there's no culture, no chai tapri, no vada pav, no misal, no thepla. I want a character; I want the local dogs and vibes around the agency. This is what Bombay is. We have grown with such a beautiful environment, and creative minds work when you have such wonderful setups around you."

And Bhasin acquiesced. By the time Padhi left, so had Bhasin, in what many term the Dentsunami, where all senior leaders left the group.

Padhi blames the non-Japanese global leaders for his exit because they decided to merge all creative agencies of the group into a single unit. "They never travelled to India or some important markets and suddenly decided the fortunes of everybody." He wanted to play a longer innings at Dentsu, but seeing his agency's name merged into another was the final straw.

Padhi says his new agency, if all falls into place well, will come to life in the first quarter of CY2025. While he works on meeting this deadline, it's important to look at the legacy he's left behind. Not through the campaigns he has worked on, but on the people, he has nurtured in some way for advertising and the entrepreneurial spirit.

There is Mayuresh Dubhashi, chief creative officer at FCB India; he worked at Taproot from August 2013 to August 2019. Pallavi Chakravarti has co-founded the indie creative agency Fundamental and is its chief creative officer; she spent nearly nine years at Taproot from August 2012 to May 2021. Padhi also mentions Piyush Gupta, ace Bollywood scriptwriter and director of the movie Tarla. 

Then there are Gautam and PG of Talented and Aalap Desai from Dentsu Isobar, who co-founded TGTHR and is its chief creative; they must have spoken to Padhi before starting their shops.

The students had become the masters. Well, the master has returned.