Har ghar kuch udaas hai

How do you pen an obituary for someone who’s younger than you? Someone who transformed advertising and gave it an Indian voice? Can you even do justice to it?

1982 was an important year for OBM, as it was then called, as David Ogilvy left his French chateau to actually visit India. At the Advertising Congress he spoke about how Asian advertising was the tortoise that would overtake the western hare. He took a train from Delhi to Madras as he was paranoid of flying. But something else happened in 1982 at OBM. A 27-year-old Ranji trophy player by the name of Piyush Pandey joined the agency as a client service executive. In time he would transform an agency known more for its strategic direction into a creative powerhouse and give advertising an unmistakable Indian character and voice.

The times they were a changing!

The winds of change were already sweeping the Indian advertising scene. The industry which had reared itself on print advertising was suddenly discovering the power of television as the Asian games brought colour television into the country. Already the Liril advertisement in cinema halls with Karen Lunel dancing in the waterfall had men drooling and women fantasizing. Agencies geared up big time for TV and its potency as ads like “Hamara Bajaj” and “I love you Rasna” made it to TV screens, where entire families devotedly crowded around a single screen.

Talk to me in my mother tongue!

Advertising In India till then had been dominated by English copywriters from St. Stephens or Xaviers or Loyola, who had probably devoured “six weeks to words of power”. The advertising was western in thinking, orientation and execution. In the meantime, Piyush had moved to regional advertising in OBM. Even in the eighties, OBM had realized the value of speaking in Tamil to the Tamilian with the Asian paints Pongal commercial which appealed to Tamilian hearts, conceptualized and written as it was for Tamilians and their unique harvest festival. Around this time a public service ad was making waves on Doordarshan. “Mile sur mera tumhara” with its bevy of celebrities from the length and breadth of the country had been written by Piyush. People of my vintage still rave about it.

Chal meri Luna!

Public transport being the way it was, there was need for a cheap and easy mode of transport that even women could ride with ease. Deep down south the TVS 50 was finding increasing popularity aided as it was by an award-winning press campaign which I can still remember. “Teachers pet” read the ad which showed a young schoolteacher riding the TVS 50 proudly to school. The response from Luna was on TV and the simple and yet highly effective line “chal meri Luna” resonated with young India. This was the beginning perhaps of a style of advertising that Piyush so effortlessly led. An advertising style that resonated with India and Indians. Advertising that appealed to the heart and made the consumer think proudly “it’s about me”.

Cricket meri jaan!

Piyush was a cricketer who loved the game. It was an integral part of his life and was always a part of his vocabulary and thinking. Nowhere else was it in greater evidence than in the Cadbury’s commercial featuring a cricket match with a pretty girl in the audience dancing her way to the pitch and our hearts even as she dodged a bemused policeman, after the winning hit for six. An ad that’s still talked about years later and which was rightly rated as the ad of the century by the Bombay Ad club.

Stick it, shut it and forget it!

Pidilite industries and Ogilvy have had a fantastic relationship. Fevicol was a clear market leader and probably needed very little advertising given its heritage and standing. However, some of the best ads for Fevicol have been created by Ogilvy, whether it was millions of passengers stuck to a rickety bus on a winding road or the carpenter trying to break an egg. My personal favourite is the Fevikwik ad where we have the sophisticated angler struggling to catch a solitary fish whilst the country bumpkin walks away triumphantly in a jiffy after snaring many fish which get stuck to his fishing rod which has Fevikwik in it. Probably Piyush’s earthy way of cocking a snook at the anglicized copy writer!

The list continues!

A classic case of appealing to the heart in the language and idiom of the consumer is perhaps best exemplified by the Asian paints ad “har ghar kuch kehta hai”. I was so impressed with the advertising that I went and bought the stock! But that’s another story. On a more serious note, the Vodafone ads stole the thunder from Airtel’s advertising, making the market leader look dated and fuddy duddy causing the brand to change its advertising strategy. Titan continues to be one of the most important clients of Ogilvy, winning awards and ensuring that the brand continues to be the market leader by far.

And what about the consumer?

As someone who loves advertising and who has spent his entire life in this business, I can say with certainty that the passing of Piyush has left a gaping hole in the industry. Indian consumers love ads, sometimes more than the programmes in which these ads are featured. And the loss of Piyush, will be felt in every household in India. His creativity will be missed by every Television watcher in India, perhaps most of all by me, his unabashed admirer.