Piyush Pandey and the art of connecting with India’s masses

In a casual banter at an industry event in 2008, this writer asked a bunch of young executives from India's advertising industry if they felt overwhelmed in the presence of creative legends from all over the world at an international event that they had just returned from.

- Archna Shukla

One of them pointed at Piyush Pandey and said: “Mere paas baap hai (referring to Pandey as the ‘father of Indian advertising’). Why should I be afraid?”

A reference to the iconic dialogue—“Mere paas ma hai”—from the Hindi film Deewar, this elicited a laughter in the group.

Pandey, who was part of the conversation, wasn't impressed. “Ye to udhaar ka hai...kuch original hona chahiye (this is borrowed; it’s got to be something original),” he said.

Pandey, who passed away at the age of 70 on 24 October, was an original raconteur.

That he borrowed extensively from India’s rich and diverse cultural landscape in his storytelling wasn’t an irony, but actually a flair that came from a rootedness which is largely missing in the industry.

Pandey had an unmistakable talent to pick symbols, colours, expressions, ambience and characters that could resonate with a brand’s target audience.

This made him stand out in an industry that couldn’t shed the influence of the world the phenomenon of mass advertising came from.

An anecdote from the corridors of Ogilvy India, the ad agency where Piyush Pandey began his career in 1982, reflects this.