India’s most stylish ad man Diwan Arun Nanda: Sandeep Goyal

Diwan Arun Nanda, Rediffusion’s founder and Chairman for 50 long years departed for his heavenly abode over the weekend, leaving me and scores of others who learnt advertising at his feet, heart-broken and devastated. He was a legend, no less. An advertising giant. A magician with clients and campaigns. The first gold-medalist of the very first batch of IIM-Ahmedabad and the first ever Management Trainee hired by Hindustan Lever, he was credited with the creation of Rin’s ‘lightning’ mnemonic as its brand manager. 

I have known Diwan Nanda since 1994, when he hired me at Rediffusion. Today, as I look back over the past three decades and ask myself what is it of Mr. Nanda that I want to remember for a long long time, and always? The answer simply is, his incomparable style. His panache. His flair. His penchant for the very best. Always. Why? Because Mr. Nanda epitomized that generation of advertising icons that were rolled out a red carpet by clients, and were held in high esteem – both for their intellect, as also their force of personality. Something that has sadly gone missing today. 

Mr. Nanda was famous for his impeccable sartorial style – his Canali suits, tailored bespoke for him from Italy. His neckties were always Hermes.  The pocket squares always had a designer stamp. Shoes were always Bally (much like his close friend Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi). Arun was Ratan Tata’s very trusted pal. He supped and dined with ministers Arun Nehru and Arun Singh, and politicians of the 1980s were in awe of him. Amitabh Bachchan was so close to him that he named his son after the matinee idol. Kiran and Shiv Nadar were his inner circle. So were Deepak Khaitan and Vijay Mallya. With common interests in horse racing: Nanda owned a horse called Adjudicate that won The Indian Turf Invitation Cup twice, his horse called Aggregated won the Calcutta Derby, and Ashwamedha won the Pune Derby. And of course Harvestime won more races on the trot than one could count! Diwan Nanda was Indian advertising’s royalty – his class had the indelible stamp of nobility, refinement and evolved tastes.

Mike Dolan, then Chairman of Young & Rubicam was in India for a Board meeting. It was Mike’s first visit to India. He wanted to see the Taj but his return flight was in just a few hours. Mr. Nanda called me and asked me to arrange a private jet to take Dolan to Agra. I wasn’t sure I had heard right. But what Mr. Nanda wanted, he got. A couple of hours later I was escorting the Y&R chief around the Taj – with the private plane waiting on the tarmac to take us back to Delhi. Such was Nanda’s style and large heartedness. Which agency guy would even dream to do something like this today? 

And like all royals, Mr. Nanda could not ever be bulldozed. On anything. Rediffusion had won the Pepsi Foods account (yes, the famous Tazos campaign if you remember) after many months of actively courting the client with the help of Young & Rubicam. Late 1990s. One afternoon while reviewing some new work, the team told Arun that the client interface, a lady manager, was rude, rough and extremely difficult to work with. Many instances of her unreasonable behaviour and arrogance were pointed out. The fact that her boss, when approached, had turned a deaf ear was also told to Mr. Nanda. Suddenly, in the middle of the discussion, he got up, got into his car and drove out to the Pepsi office! The Country Head was surprised to see him. Mr. Nanda did not even sit down: just looked the CEO in the eye and resigned the account. “Nobody treats Rediffusion like a doormat.” I was President of Rediffusion then – no amount of trying to restrain Mr. Nanda ever worked – if he wanted to sack a client, he never gave it a second thought. Who would dare do it today?

When Nanda and Sir Martin Sorrell got into an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation in 2008, WPP took away the Colgate account from Rediffusion. Then Ford. Then Citibank. And then the cruelest cut of them all: Airtel. But Diwan Saheb did not flinch. He fought back. And replaced all the revenue loss by winning the entire Tata group PR mandate. He finally bought out Y&R and Dentsu stakes in 2018. A personal triumph and validation of his courage and convictions.

Arun & Sheila Nanda would head out to London every year and hire an apartment at St. James Court – to entertain friends and enjoy the summer. The parties were lavish, his friends all the who’s who. As I said, the Diwan had style. And oomph. 

I took over the baton at Rediffusion from Diwan Arun Nanda after 50 years of his leading the agency. They are big shoes to fill. Both in terms of stature and class. Nanda was an advertising legend, but he more importantly had an air of authority that came to him naturally. He knew his genius and knew the value he brought to a client’s business and brands. For that he demanded respect and commanded reverence: be it Sunil Bharti Mittal at Airtel or Jagdish Khattar at Maruti. 

An era has ended. They no longer make guys like Mr. Nanda any more.

Dr. Sandeep Goyal is Chairman of Rediffusion.