Santosh Padhi (PADDY)
Founder and Chief Creative Officer
Into Creative
Popularly known as 'Paddy' started his advertising career 25 years ago. Once again founded a independent creative agency called “INTO” few weeks back to walk the talk and fill the creative vacuum in the industry.
He co-founded Taproot India back in the year 2009 which is still considered as one of the iconic creative agencies of this nation, that produced path breaking brand campaigns for brands like Pepsi “Change the Game” cricket world cup 2011, Airtel “Har ek friend jaroorihotahai”, Mumbai Mirror “Hated by some” Amazon India launch, Adidas “Odds” Face Book, Times of India to name a few.
In his last two and half decades privileged to have worked on some of the prestigious local and global iconic brands like: Pepsi, Airtel, Face Book, Times of India, Mumbai Mirror, Disney, Myntra, Amazon, Aditya Birla Capital, Mahindra & Mahindra Auto, Hero Vida, Jio 5G, Jindal Steel, P&G Tide, McDonalds, Johnnie Walker, Heinz, Dulux paints, Hitachi Air Conditioners, Fiat India, Bajaj Auto, Nirma detergent, etc
He has been voted as the top creative directors /creative leader from India, Asia and the world at per several advertising surveys, here are few of the creative highlights. He is the first Indian to win a Cyber Cannes Lion 2008 for India. Taproot was the first Indian creative agency to win “Agency of the year” awards at the Adfest Pattaya and also at Spikes Asia. His Conqueror Papers print campaign still holds the record of ‘most awarded print campaigns’ in the world by the Gunn Report. His Times of India Farmer Suicide Campaign hold the record of winning 4 golds at Cannes for India in one single night. Adidas ‘Odds’ campaign for para-athletes which is close to his heart, was the most awarded campaign from India in 2017.
Paddy is a proud winner of 2 dozen Cannes Lions awards. He has won gold's at almost every advertising award show in Indian and at International advertising shows, with over 500 international and local advertising awards, as well as multiple Grand Prix titles under his belt.
Paddy has deservedly served as a jury chair and jury member for numerous international award shows representing the country, including Cannes Lions thrice, Clio, D&AD, New York Festival, London International Awards, Dubai Lynx, Adfest Pattaya, AdStar Busan, ADC, ANDY awards, Kancil Malaysian Award, Chilli-SriLankan Award and many other local advertising shows. He has also served as Jury President twice at Adfest Pattaya. Last few years he has been obsessed behind fitness and running, he strongly believes a healthy body leads to a healthy mind.