Agnello Dias, co-founder, chairman and CCO, Taproot India, has spent the last two decades in advertising. His work has been lauded by the pinnacle of advertising recognition that is the Cannes Lions Festival, where he's won India's first ever Grand Prix as well as its first ever Titanium and Integrated Lion. 

Name some milestones in your advertising career that are important to you.

Getting into advertising was an ordeal for me. It took two years of unemployment before I got a break in an agency; so that itself is a milestone. Besides that, I guess you could say my first full-fledged campaigns (Parachute Coconut Oil and the launch of Walls in India), the various awards and peer recognition, leading (creatively) the largest agency in India and then branching out on my own. Who knows what's next?  

As part of the advertising fraternity, what's your take on advertising on digital mediums like the web or mobile?

I feel it's been ‘on the verge' for too long in India. It's about time, the tipping point is crossed and we actually had a big campaign or two on the ‘other' side.  

Do you think Indian brands are on their way to embracing digital advertising like international brands have?

Not yet. I think everyone's waiting for someone else to do it first.  

Do you think Indian entries not even making the shortlist for the 2010 Cyber Lions, let alone winning, is a bad sign for digital in India, or was this merely an anomaly?

Well, last year Santosh Padhi won India's first Cyber Lion, so I think this year is an anomaly. I do not subscribe to the trade media's obsession with ranking anything other than our best-ever performance as our worst-ever.  

What's the best digital ad you've come across? Why did it stand out?

I still think the BMW film campaign that created a new category (Titanium) at Cannes is the best ever piece. Not only because it was digital but because it put the entire onus on the stickiness of the execution and the conviction that it would be tagged and forwarded.  

The mobile phone market is growing faster than the PC market in India. How big a piece of the advertising pie do you foresee mobile advertising taking?

Mobile will be bigger than computer-based internet for sure. Eventually mobile will be big but will always be bogged down by size unless we have mobile phones with in-built spot projectors soon.  

Apple's iAd platform is all set to revolutionise the advertising industry in the West, offering an interactive, audio-visual platform for ads on a medium that's gaining adopters. When will India see a similar platform set up purely for digital advertising?

I honestly think, it will be a long, long time before we see something similar in India. Partly because the shift inside the industry's head has not happened yet. Only after that will the body respond.  

What's your take on BrandPotion? It's good, it's a little ahead of its time to my mind. But times can change really fast. So thats probably round the corner.  

Take the case of Victors & Spoils. They're the world's first creative crowdsourcing agency. Do you feel this concept will change the way advertising works?

Yes it will. Business models will change. A large part of the pie will go this way. The cream will still stay though.  

How far down the line do you foresee an agency in India turning to crowdsourcing to draw ideas for its client?

Very soon. I think it just needs one successful ambassador.  

Where does the future of crowdsourcing lie, at least as far as the advertising industry's concerned?

The future of crowd sourcing lies in the advertising industry's continued refusal to nurture new talent. The more this continues, the greater the chances of crowd sourcing succeeding.