2011 has been good for independent agencies with a whole bunch of them sprouting in the year.

The trend actually started three years back. Taproot. Cartwheel. Scarecrow. And what you witnessed was a fantastic new advertising culture emerging.

The market is ready and willing for smaller non-network driven agencies. The big and small marketers are willing to experiment and are quite happy actually to have smaller agencies as their partners.

Overall, it was an enormously encouraging place for you to start on your own if you wanted to. And that is how in 2011 there were more of us - indies as the media call us - coming up.

The advertising world seems to be coming a full circle .The trend that happened many years ago suddenly stopped. It continued in other parts of the world, but not in India. With most Indian agencies selling stake, full or part, I am glad it is back.

What is it that is letting the clients find ways around alignments and also breaking the self-created rule of working with big names only?

Primarily I feel it is the partnering, the passion and the closely knit teams with which smaller agency set ups approach the business and the brands.

And finally you don’t really deal with organisations, you deal with people. If the same people that you dealt with before and were happy with what they delivered for you, then how does it matter if they are in a small or a large agency? Also as small start-ups, you automatically work harder and harder and there are no goof ups whatsoever because there is no longer any cushioning or complacency. I guess all these factors combined make small start-ups an equally attractive option.

It has been an amazing experience for Curry-Nation. We already have 10 brands with us. And have also done projects for four other brands. It was a good and solid foundation.

Size has stopped bothering us. It is now about quality, service, partnerships and output.That is what matters. And that is what should have mattered all along.

So last year for us was all new. A combination of getting talent, winning clients and working like close knit family that has got together. Evolving new ways of working, creating your culture. We got talked and written about.

Now is the second year and the challenge is even bigger. Because once the ‘newsiness’ on your newness dries out, it is only your work that will make you stand shoulder to shoulder with the biggies. Taproot has done an admirable job. It is an agency we look up to in terms of what they have achieved over the last few years after starting.

And there are our bold clients who have made the call, broken norms, put aside big agency repute myths and stood by us. Their faith is what made us smile everyday through last year and made us feel that we are on the right track.

So we do salute the year that went and welcome 2012 with open arms as we step into the second year of our business.