Mukta Lad
Like parents of most children who take up a career in advertising, Piyush Pandey’s parents, too, had no clue what the job meant at the time. “You don’t draw, you don’t write, and you were bad at maths. So, how did they make you an account executive?” they asked, assuming that his job at Ogilvy India involved some serious accounting and number-crunching.
Today, 41 years later, he is the executive chairman and has spent his entire career at the agency. And come January 2024, he will move into the role of a chief advisor, passing on the baton to Ogilvy veterans. He says he’s a “team player”, likening the change in his role to that of a cricket team’s captaincy. “It’s like when the captain changes from MS Dhoni to Virat Kohli, while Dhoni is still in the team. The meaning of succession is to allow people to lead,” he says.
The early years
Pandey spent a lot of time playing cricket growing up, making it to the Ranji Trophy level. “The game has always inspired me and was my life,” he says. The advertising account executive job happened to him after his first job as a “tea taster”, he says with a laugh. But how did the switch to copywriter happen?
“Those were the times when India was changing. 1982 was the year of the Asian Games and the colour TV had just been introduced,” he says.
With TV aggressively entering Indian households, it was necessary for copywriters, who hitherto wrote print ads, to also write TV commercials. “The earlier writers couldn’t adjust to this change. Often, people [in the agency] asked me to write something their creative teams couldn’t crack,” he says.
“The client would say, ‘This is fantastic stuff, please congratulate the creative team.’ I couldn’t tell them I was the ‘creative team’ or they’d definitely say “No, this isn’t good enough!’” he says with a laugh. And that’s how it began, before his boss, Suresh Mullick (celebrated creative head) and then MD Mani Ayer asked 32-year-old Pandey to switch sides to become a “specialist in Indian advertising”.
One of his earliest works that propelled him into fame was ‘Mile Sur Mera Tumhara’ — a 1988 campaign promoting national integration and unity in diversity. Pandey penned the lyrics of the eponymous song, which was the campaign’s mainstay.
And how many iterations before the lyrics were good to go? “18,” he says. “By the 14th version, Suresh thought I was close, but the 18th version was final.”
The film first aired on Doordarshan on Independence Day, right after then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s speech.
The humanness in advertising
For someone who entered the business before the advent of colour television, Pandey has witnessed tectonic shifts in advertising. The biggest is probably how tech-driven it has become. While he isn’t averse to technology at all, he believes it can’t be the idea.
He also can’t stress enough the power of human conversations. In his 2015 book Pandeymonium, Pandey dismissed advertising research as something that mostly asks irrelevant questions to arrive at inauthentic answers. But does he stand by this opinion even today, when research, analytics and data-driven insights are front and centre of the business? “100% I do. Unless there’s a very sensitive researcher — and there aren’t too many — it’s likely they will ask stupid questions and get stupid answers from consumers. Those can’t lead you to good work,” he says.
What then is his research process? “Sit down and chat with consumers, human-to-human. In just an hour you will know how keen they are about the quality of their furniture or who makes the decisions in their home,” he says, adding, “Don’t become a headmaster and ask question after question.”
He also makes no bones about the waning ‘humanness’ in advertising leading to brands getting rejected by uninterested consumers. “When I switched on the IPL this year or the Cricket World Cup, I felt concerned. What are these people [brands and agencies] doing? There is no idea; just four celebrities in the ad. At least give them a story!” he says.
Sometimes, he adds, that a great product sells itself but it’s believed the advertising sold it. “Don’t work for yourself but the consumer,” he cautions.
Owning ‘shower time’
Four decades is a long time to spend in one workplace. But one of the several happy consequences of such a long stint is some ironclad client relationships.
Pandey wholeheartedly believes that strong partnerships lend themselves to great work. “Take Pidilite for instance. The client played a huge role in encouraging us to do that kind of work on Fevicol. It’s the same with Cadbury, Asian Paints and a whole lot of other brands,” he says.
If you start as people who weren’t friends, then did great work together and respected each other, you end up becoming friends. But in the age of the project, where agencies fulfil a brief and move on, Pandey says, it’s like “believing in having 10 girlfriends but not a wife”.
Has the startup era normalised project work? “But the worst work comes out of startups. And half of them have shut down,” he says.
“When you’re working with someone on an ongoing basis, then that person owns my shower time, too. The client may not have asked me for anything, but I’m always thinking, ‘What is the next idea?’ Taking half-a-million rupees to finish a job quickly before the 30th of the month is no way to build a long-term business,” he surmises.
| The advertising of politics You worked closely with the BJP for its 2014 and 2019 election campaigns. In today’s largely polarised world, what should agencies be mindful of while creating a political campaign? The same things as they would for any other product. What are you selling? What does your client want to say to the public? And how can you make it happen? It’s like selling a car or a health message. Also, if you don’t believe in someone’s political ideology, don’t take it up. What is the process of creating a campaign? Politicians aren’t like the typical MBA clients, are they? Do you think that there is some sort of ethical aspect to political advertising? How much time do you usually get to create a political campaign before an election? Are you in talks with the BJP for the 2024 elections? Some advice for agencies taking up political campaigns? |
The invisible threat: addressing ad fraud in the Connected TV world
From Invisible Pixels to Fake Audiences, here’s a deep dive into the different types of ad fraud on connected TV.
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The Ogilvy executive chairman warns brands that waning humanness, as he saw in ads during the recent ICC World Cup, may lead to their services getting rejected by uninterested consumers.
Like parents of most children who take up a career in advertising, Piyush Pandey’s parents, too, had no clue what the job meant at the time. “You don’t draw, you don’t write, and you were bad at maths. So, how did they make you an account executive?” they asked, assuming that his job at Ogilvy India involved some serious accounting and number-crunching.
Today, 41 years later, he is the executive chairman and has spent his entire career at the agency. And come January 2024, he will move into the role of a chief advisor, passing on the baton to Ogilvy veterans. He says he’s a “team player”, likening the change in his role to that of a cricket team’s captaincy. “It’s like when the captain changes from MS Dhoni to Virat Kohli, while Dhoni is still in the team. The meaning of succession is to allow people to lead,” he says.The early years
Pandey spent a lot of time playing cricket growing up, making it to the Ranji Trophy level. “The game has always inspired me and was my life,” he says. The advertising account executive job happened to him after his first job as a “tea taster”, he says with a laugh. But how did the switch to copywriter happen?
“Those were the times when India was changing. 1982 was the year of the Asian Games and the colour TV had just been introduced,” he says.
With TV aggressively entering Indian households, it was necessary for copywriters, who hitherto wrote print ads, to also write TV commercials. “The earlier writers couldn’t adjust to this change. Often, people [in the agency] asked me to write something their creative teams couldn’t crack,” he says.
“The client would say, ‘This is fantastic stuff, please congratulate the creative team.’ I couldn’t tell them I was the ‘creative team’ or they’d definitely say “No, this isn’t good enough!’” he says with a laugh. And that’s how it began, before his boss, Suresh Mullick (celebrated creative head) and then MD Mani Ayer asked 32-year-old Pandey to switch sides to become a “specialist in Indian advertising”.
One of his earliest works that propelled him into fame was ‘Mile Sur Mera Tumhara’ — a 1988 campaign promoting national integration and unity in diversity. Pandey penned the lyrics of the eponymous song, which was the campaign’s mainstay.
And how many iterations before the lyrics were good to go? “18,” he says. “By the 14th version, Suresh thought I was close, but the 18th version was final.”
The film first aired on Doordarshan on Independence Day, right after then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s speech.
The humanness in advertising
For someone who entered the business before the advent of colour television, Pandey has witnessed tectonic shifts in advertising. The biggest is probably how tech-driven it has become. While he isn’t averse to technology at all, he believes it can’t be the idea.
He also can’t stress enough the power of human conversations. In his 2015 book Pandeymonium, Pandey dismissed advertising research as something that mostly asks irrelevant questions to arrive at inauthentic answers. But does he stand by this opinion even today, when research, analytics and data-driven insights are front and centre of the business? “100% I do. Unless there’s a very sensitive researcher — and there aren’t too many — it’s likely they will ask stupid questions and get stupid answers from consumers. Those can’t lead you to good work,” he says.
What then is his research process? “Sit down and chat with consumers, human-to-human. In just an hour you will know how keen they are about the quality of their furniture or who makes the decisions in their home,” he says, adding, “Don’t become a headmaster and ask question after question.”
He also makes no bones about the waning ‘humanness’ in advertising leading to brands getting rejected by uninterested consumers. “When I switched on the IPL this year or the Cricket World Cup, I felt concerned. What are these people [brands and agencies] doing? There is no idea; just four celebrities in the ad. At least give them a story!” he says.
Sometimes, he adds, that a great product sells itself but it’s believed the advertising sold it. “Don’t work for yourself but the consumer,” he cautions.
Owning ‘shower time’
Four decades is a long time to spend in one workplace. But one of the several happy consequences of such a long stint is some ironclad client relationships.
Pandey wholeheartedly believes that strong partnerships lend themselves to great work. “Take Pidilite for instance. The client played a huge role in encouraging us to do that kind of work on Fevicol. It’s the same with Cadbury, Asian Paints and a whole lot of other brands,” he says.
If you start as people who weren’t friends, then did great work together and respected each other, you end up becoming friends. But in the age of the project, where agencies fulfil a brief and move on, Pandey says, it’s like “believing in having 10 girlfriends but not a wife”.
Has the startup era normalised project work? “But the worst work comes out of startups. And half of them have shut down,” he says.
“When you’re working with someone on an ongoing basis, then that person owns my shower time, too. The client may not have asked me for anything, but I’m always thinking, ‘What is the next idea?’ Taking half-a-million rupees to finish a job quickly before the 30th of the month is no way to build a long-term business,” he surmises.
| The advertising of politics You worked closely with the BJP for its 2014 and 2019 election campaigns. In today’s largely polarised world, what should agencies be mindful of while creating a political campaign? The same things as they would for any other product. What are you selling? What does your client want to say to the public? And how can you make it happen? It’s like selling a car or a health message. Also, if you don’t believe in someone’s political ideology, don’t take it up. What is the process of creating a campaign? Politicians aren’t like the typical MBA clients, are they? Do you think that there is some sort of ethical aspect to political advertising? How much time do you usually get to create a political campaign before an election? Are you in talks with the BJP for the 2024 elections? Some advice for agencies taking up political campaigns? |
From Invisible Pixels to Fake Audiences, here’s a deep dive into the different types of ad fraud on connected TV.
Like parents of most children who take up a career in advertising, Piyush Pandey’s parents, too, had no clue what the job meant at the time. “You don’t draw, you don’t write, and you were bad at maths. So, how did they make you an account executive?” they asked, assuming that his job at Ogilvy India involved some serious accounting and number-crunching.
Today, 41 years later, he is the executive chairman and has spent his entire career at the agency. And come January 2024, he will move into the role of a chief advisor, passing on the baton to Ogilvy veterans. He says he’s a “team player”, likening the change in his role to that of a cricket team’s captaincy. “It’s like when the captain changes from MS Dhoni to Virat Kohli, while Dhoni is still in the team. The meaning of succession is to allow people to lead,” he says.
The early years
Pandey spent a lot of time playing cricket growing up, making it to the Ranji Trophy level. “The game has always inspired me and was my life,” he says. The advertising account executive job happened to him after his first job as a “tea taster”, he says with a laugh. But how did the switch to copywriter happen?
“Those were the times when India was changing. 1982 was the year of the Asian Games and the colour TV had just been introduced,” he says.
With TV aggressively entering Indian households, it was necessary for copywriters, who hitherto wrote print ads, to also write TV commercials. “The earlier writers couldn’t adjust to this change. Often, people [in the agency] asked me to write something their creative teams couldn’t crack,” he says.
“The client would say, ‘This is fantastic stuff, please congratulate the creative team.’ I couldn’t tell them I was the ‘creative team’ or they’d definitely say “No, this isn’t good enough!’” he says with a laugh. And that’s how it began, before his boss, Suresh Mullick (celebrated creative head) and then MD Mani Ayer asked 32-year-old Pandey to switch sides to become a “specialist in Indian advertising”.
One of his earliest works that propelled him into fame was ‘Mile Sur Mera Tumhara’ — a 1988 campaign promoting national integration and unity in diversity. Pandey penned the lyrics of the eponymous song, which was the campaign’s mainstay.
And how many iterations before the lyrics were good to go? “18,” he says. “By the 14th version, Suresh thought I was close, but the 18th version was final.”
The film first aired on Doordarshan on Independence Day, right after then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s speech.
The humanness in advertising
For someone who entered the business before the advent of colour television, Pandey has witnessed tectonic shifts in advertising. The biggest is probably how tech-driven it has become. While he isn’t averse to technology at all, he believes it can’t be the idea.
He also can’t stress enough the power of human conversations. In his 2015 book Pandeymonium, Pandey dismissed advertising research as something that mostly asks irrelevant questions to arrive at inauthentic answers. But does he stand by this opinion even today, when research, analytics and data-driven insights are front and centre of the business? “100% I do. Unless there’s a very sensitive researcher — and there aren’t too many — it’s likely they will ask stupid questions and get stupid answers from consumers. Those can’t lead you to good work,” he says.
What then is his research process? “Sit down and chat with consumers, human-to-human. In just an hour you will know how keen they are about the quality of their furniture or who makes the decisions in their home,” he says, adding, “Don’t become a headmaster and ask question after question.”
He also makes no bones about the waning ‘humanness’ in advertising leading to brands getting rejected by uninterested consumers. “When I switched on the IPL this year or the Cricket World Cup, I felt concerned. What are these people [brands and agencies] doing? There is no idea; just four celebrities in the ad. At least give them a story!” he says.
Sometimes, he adds, that a great product sells itself but it’s believed the advertising sold it. “Don’t work for yourself but the consumer,” he cautions.
Owning ‘shower time’
Four decades is a long time to spend in one workplace. But one of the several happy consequences of such a long stint is some ironclad client relationships.
Pandey wholeheartedly believes that strong partnerships lend themselves to great work. “Take Pidilite for instance. The client played a huge role in encouraging us to do that kind of work on Fevicol. It’s the same with Cadbury, Asian Paints and a whole lot of other brands,” he says.
If you start as people who weren’t friends, then did great work together and respected each other, you end up becoming friends. But in the age of the project, where agencies fulfil a brief and move on, Pandey says, it’s like “believing in having 10 girlfriends but not a wife”.
Has the startup era normalised project work? “But the worst work comes out of startups. And half of them have shut down,” he says.
“When you’re working with someone on an ongoing basis, then that person owns my shower time, too. The client may not have asked me for anything, but I’m always thinking, ‘What is the next idea?’ Taking half-a-million rupees to finish a job quickly before the 30th of the month is no way to build a long-term business,” he surmises.
| The advertising of politics You worked closely with the BJP for its 2014 and 2019 election campaigns. In today’s largely polarised world, what should agencies be mindful of while creating a political campaign? The same things as they would for any other product. What are you selling? What does your client want to say to the public? And how can you make it happen? It’s like selling a car or a health message. Also, if you don’t believe in someone’s political ideology, don’t take it up. What is the process of creating a campaign? Politicians aren’t like the typical MBA clients, are they? Do you think that there is some sort of ethical aspect to political advertising? How much time do you usually get to create a political campaign before an election? Are you in talks with the BJP for the 2024 elections? Some advice for agencies taking up political campaigns? |
The invisible threat: addressing ad fraud in the Connected TV world
From Invisible Pixels to Fake Audiences, here’s a deep dive into the different types of ad fraud on connected TV.
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