Emmanuel Upputuru founder of ITSA India ‘resigns’ in a public stunt to relaunch his agency
There was a lot of buzz in the Indian ad industry last week when Emmanuel Upputuru published a resignation letter to his staff on his company’s website: itsawebsite.in.
Three days after Upputuru came clean and revealed the reason behind the resignation letter and revealed his plans for the future.
Upputuru, Founder of ITSA, said he took a leaf out of Christ’s ‘Death, Burial, and Resurrection’. His ITSA Resurrection campaign was enacted over three days keeping industry tongues speculating.
On 8th October 2017 at about 5pm he published a resignation letter addressed to his employees on his company’s website. After which he simply refused to answer any calls from friends and journalists from in the Indian industry – in case he give away any clues as to what he was up to.
On day two, as he had hoped, at least two leading Indian trade publications carried the news with headlines like, “ITSA shuts shop. Emmanuel Upputuru moves on.” Symbolically burying the agency.
And on the third day Upputuru released a video interview where he revealed that this was a rebooting exercise for him and his agency.
“ITSA was a great idea. We did a lot of cool stuff. Unbelievable stuff. But ITSA had lost its original purpose somewhere along the way. To focus on innovations. And I was afraid we were slowly drifting towards conforming to the image of a regular agency. So I had to kill ITSA. That’s why I resigned from ITSA. I couldn’t have started something new without killing ITSA first,” said Upputuru. “The only way to live was to crucify ITSA.”
He revealed various innovative projects that the company has already started and will soon announce one by one.
Upputuru admit it was a risky tactic: “Of course it was risky. But just before releasing the letter, I had jitters and that was enough of a signal for me to go ahead. I tell my clients to be bold and take risks, so I had to practice what I preach.”