A small agency with the right intent can make it to the big league: tgthr co-founders

An agency that is not even a year old and was regarded more as an upstart rather than a startup just a few months ago, has changed perceptions in the advertising industry. tgthr. became India’s first independent agency to win a Cannes Lion and the only agency in the world to get the award within a year of its conception. 

Recalling his initial days when he had just started tgthr in August 2023, founder Aalap Desai said that there were detractors and skeptics all around him. “I was very sure of what I set out to do. The restraining environment at big networks meant we were often working in silos. The concept of working in a more cohesive environment, in fact, is how tgthr. got its name,” he said. 

Banking on the connections he had made over a decade-and-a-half within the creative industry and his own conviction, he got the ball rolling. Fortunately for him, Reckitt, a consumer goods conglomerate, came on board as one of the agency’s first clients after a random dinner table conversation. Rahul Vengalil joined him as a co-founder in January this year, aligning with the idea of creating a thriving and happy work culture that gives wings to creativity. 

e4m had a chat with the two co-founders of the agency to talk about their experience at Cannes, the impact of evolving technology on the creative industry and many other things.  

Glass Lion 

The Silver Lion won by the agency was for Harpic’s #Loocator campaign in the Glass: The Lion for Change category. This category rewards works that address gender issues and scrutinises the work presented by the entrants based on its real-world impact. 

When asked about why such few Indian entries end up winning the metals at Cannes, Aalap said that the jury in international competitions is no longer buying into "poverty porn" tactics that show India in a regressive and backward light. However, most agencies stick to a formula when it comes to the entries sent for such awards, he said. 

Rahul said the problem was that agencies in India are not scaling up enough. He cited the example of Heinz which often makes use of its position as a global leader in the condiment market to crowdsource  user generated content. “Here, we get bogged down by the budget and duration constraints. This does not allow us to think long-term and give out more tactical messaging that could even possibly bring serious change to consumer behaviour. Usually, the campaigns we churn out are a one-and-done deal,” he said. 

For all of this to be possible, the client is the strength of the agency, insisted Aalap. He said that the Reckitt team’s support is what enabled them to work on long-term impact when it came to the Loocator ad. “The client also was equally enthusiastic about the idea of measuring the impact the campaign had created. They got some good spokespersons involved to scale it up further over time,” he said.  

This impact measurement was among the big factors in tgthr. Winning the Glass Lion, too. “The jury for this category is interested in the real-world changes brought about by the campaign rather than the creative side of things,” said Aalap. Between first presenting the campaign as an entry in April to the final presentation in June, the agency and client kept on collecting the data. “This allowed us to present the updated numbers with the jury during the final presentation.  

The process of presentation for the jury for the Glass Lion involves talking about the case study for a couple of minutes, followed by a presentation of around 10 minutes and then come the questions from the jury members. It is during the latter two that having the numbers and impact stories helps, said Aalap.In each of these stages, the team had the facts, figures and other data points ready to be rattled off. This was a big factor in their win, they said. 

Impact of technology 

The Loocator campaign was among the many that integrated technology in problem solving. Aalap believes that technology is reduced to just lines of codes if not used in the right manner. However, in an ecosystem like India where we have so many challenges, it can be harnessed to overcome the challenges and to solve human problems, he feels. 

While many of us are worried about technology, especially artificial intelligence, replacing us or taking away our jobs, team tgthr. sees technology as an enabler. “AI can sure result in changing some job profiles, but it can not take your job away. In fact, one can use it to make our work lives easier by taking up the mundane tasks, leaving us more mental space for the important stuff,” said Rahul. 

“AI, at the end of the day, is an average of intelligence accessible across the internet. It can endanger your job only if you are bad at it. Those who are average and above average will end up giving better output than AI,” said Aalap. He points out that nearly all the everyday tasks we handle today were done manually once. Like photoshop and Word, he said, AI is just another tool that can make tasks like research or number crunching faster. Rahul agreed, and said even if research and summarising is done with AI, the user still has to be skilled enough to analyse it and apply the results in a proper way.  

The euphoria 

One of the biggest wins that the team sees around them after their Cannes win is the confidence that it has instilled in other smaller agencies. “I feel like the entire industry has become our cheerleaders. The realisation that even a small agency with its heart at the right place and the correct intent can make it into the big league has been exhilarating for many of my former colleagues,” said Aalap. 

Over the last few weeks, there is an increased interest in tgthr. as an agency and as a workplace, said Rahul. The 23-member team is now looking forward to a one-year anniversary for which all of them will be taking a small vacation together.