Piyush Pandey on the problem with modern advertising, ET BrandEquity

Piyush Pandey
Like the parents of most children who pursue a career in advertising, Piyush Pandey’s parents had no idea what the profession meant at the time. “You don’t draw, you don’t write and you were bad at math. So how did they make you an account executive?” they asked, assuming that his job at Ogilvy India involved serious accounting and number crunching.
Today, 41 years later, he is CEO and has spent his entire career at the agency. And in January 2024, he will take on the role of chief advisor, passing the baton to Ogilvy veterans. He says he is a “team player” and compares the change in his role to that of captain of a cricket team. “It’s like MS Dhoni’s captaincy is moving to Virat Kohli while Dhoni is still in the team. The point of succession is to allow people to lead,” he says.The early years
Pandey spent a lot of time playing cricket as a child and made it to the Ranji Trophy. “The game has always inspired me and been my life,” he says. The job as an advertising account manager happened to him after his first job as a “tea taster,” he says with a laugh. But how did the switch to copywriting come about?

“Those were the times when India changed. 1982 was the year of the Asian Games and color television had just been introduced,” he says.

As television increasingly entered Indian households, it became necessary for copywriters who previously wrote print advertisements to also write television commercials. “The previous authors could not adapt 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 that I was the “creative team,” otherwise they would definitely say, “No, that’s not good enough!” he says, laughing. And so it all began, before his boss Suresh Mullick (celebrated creative mind) and then managing director Mani Ayer asked the 32-year-old Pandey to switch sides to become an “Indian advertising specialist”.

One of his earliest works that made him famous was “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara” – a 1988 campaign to promote national integration and unity in diversity. Pandey wrote the lyrics of the song of the same name, which formed the core of the campaign.

And how many iterations did it take until the text was finished? “18,” he says. “By the 14th version, Suresh thought I was close, but the 18th version was final.”

The film was first aired on Doordarshan on Independence Day, right after the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s speech.

further down

Humanity in advertising
For someone who entered the business before the advent of color television, Pandey has witnessed tectonic shifts in advertising. The biggest thing is probably how technology-driven it has become. Although he is not at all opposed to the technology, he believes that it may not be the idea.

He also cannot emphasize enough the power of human conversation. In his 2015 book Pandeymonium, Pandey dismissed advertising research as something that mainly involves asking irrelevant questions to arrive at spurious answers. But does he still hold this view today, when research, analysis and data-driven insights are at the heart of the business? “I do that 100%. Unless there is a very sensitive researcher – and there aren’t too many of them – it is likely that he will ask stupid questions and get stupid answers from consumers. That can’t lead to good work,” he says.

Then what is his research process? “Sit down and have a conversation with consumers, person to person. In just an hour, you’ll learn how important they care about the quality of their furniture or who makes the decisions in their home,” he says, adding, “Don’t become a school principal and ask one question at a time.”

He also makes no secret of the declining “humanity” in advertising, which leads to brands being rejected by disinterested consumers. “When I turned on the IPL or the Cricket World Cup this year, I was worried. Who are those people [brands and agencies] do? There is no idea; only four celebrities in the ad. At least tell them a story!” he says.

Sometimes, he adds, a great product sells itself, but you think the advertising sold it. “Don’t work for yourself, work for the consumer,” he warns.

Have “shower time”.
Four decades is a long time in one job. But one of the many happy results of such a long tenure is some ironclad customer relationships.

Pandey strongly believes that strong partnerships are the foundation of great work. “Take Pidilite for example. The customer played a big role in encouraging us to do this type of work on Fevicol. The same goes for Cadbury, Asian Paints and many other brands,” he says.

If you start as people who weren’t friends but then did great work and respected each other, you end up becoming friends. But in the age of the project, where agencies complete a brief and then move on, Pandey says it’s like “believing you have ten girlfriends but no wife.”

Has the startup era normalized project work? “But the worst work comes from startups. And half of them have closed,” he says.

“When you work with someone long-term, that person also owns my shower time. The customer may not have asked me for anything, but I always think, “What’s the next idea?” Spending half a million rupees to quickly complete an order before the 30th of the month is no way to build a long-term business.” , he suspects.

Advertising for politics They worked closely with the BJP during the 2014 and 2019 election campaigns. In today’s largely polarized world, what should agencies look for when creating a political campaign? The same things as any other product. What do you sell? What does your customer want to say to the public? And how can you do it? It’s like selling a car or a health message. Even if you don’t believe in another person’s political ideology, don’t take it up. How does the creation of a campaign work? You need to start briefing and working with the party. There are rules. There is a speaker who will present his thoughts and then we come back to the basis of the goals that correspond to his ideas. Just like any other brand. In 2014, the late Arun Jaitley equalized [from the agency’s and the BJP’s side]. From him it used to go to Mr (Narendra) Modi and his leaders and come back with more direction. Politicians aren’t like the typical MBA client, are they? And that’s why they’re smarter! Do you think there is an ethical aspect to political advertising? Ethics is another matter that has nothing to do with politics. I believe that if a product can be sold, it should also be allowed to be advertised. But sometimes it isn’t. And in any case, the laws of the land must be followed. How much time do you typically have to create a political campaign before an election? In 2014 we had about two months. In political advertising, it depends on how much you want to reveal and at what point in time. They have been doing politics for decades, but we know how to communicate. BJP knew exactly what it wanted to say and we were able to communicate it in the language of the people. Are you in talks with the BJP for the 2024 elections? If they call me, I’ll go. There was no discussion yet. Any advice for agencies running political campaigns? It’s very easy. The consumer is the consumer, the customer is the customer and you are the communicator. If you can speak rationally to a soap consumer, then in the broader context of selecting a representative you should be able to respect that consumer and speak in that language. And never think that political parties are stupid. They know the basics that no MBA graduate knows. MBAs read books; Politicians read people.

• Published on November 29, 2023 at 08:05 AM IST

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