The Diwan of Indian advertising

With the passing of Diwan Arun Nanda, we have lost another advertising icon of advertising’s early days.

Many were intrigued by his use of the title ‘Diwan’. Diwan was a title that was historically given to the Chief Minister or Prime Minister in the princely states of India during the Mughal period and later under British rule. A Diwan was a Chief Executive Officer of a state under a Nawab, under a King, Nawab or ruler. After the abolition of the princely states in 1949-50, some families continued to use it as a social title of prestige.

After earning his undergraduate degree from Loyala College Chennai, he was a standout student at IIM Ahmedabad, becoming the first gold medalist of its inaugural batch in 1966.  Nanda began his professional journey with the then Hindustan Lever where as a young brand manager on Rin, he is known to have conceptualized the iconic ‘lightning strikes’ mnemonic, a branding cue that strongly associated itself with the brand.

After a stint with MCM, he is known to have started Rediffusion with the legendary Mohammed Khan and his longtime partner Ajit Balakrishnan who later started Rediff.com one of the first portals in the early days of the internet.

Like many advertising people of his time, he mixed with high company. He was advisor to Rajiv Gandhi from 1983-1991 and was also on the boards of several companies like Air-India, Eveready, Kingfisher and Yes Bank. His relationship with the Tata group was considered extra-ordinary and he was highly respected there. Advertising people of those days moved with the highest echelons of industry and the state. Seguila the S in Euro RSCG moved around with the Presidents of various countries. Bal Mundkur, had friends like Zulfikar Bhutto and many other heads of state.

Rediffusion beyond its other achievements of creating great campaigns like Tata Tea’s Jaago Re. Eveready batteries ‘Give me Red’ and Airtel’s ‘Express yourself’. Airtel was an account Rediffusion finally lost most unfortunately after creating a lot of great work on the brand. This then became a telling blow for the agency since it also lost its key business Colgate when Sorrell decided to pull out his equity from the agency.  The account then moved to the erstwhile Bates to avoid conflict with the other large WPP agencies.

In fact, Nanda did the balancing act of having two equity partners at the same time with Dentsu owning 13.33% of the equity and WPP owning another 26.67%. Rediffusion then had the opportunity to represent Y & R a historically great global agency until WPP’s Mark Read decided to kill the Y & R brand along with other great brands like JWT.  Sorrell was very keen to take a greater stake in Rediffusion but Nanda refused to accept Sorrell’s terms. Finally, Sorrell carried out his threat of moving the agency’s largest revenue client Colgate along with his equity.

Those years were the toughest for Rediffusion. The agency lost Airtel in July 2010 and Colgate in August 2010 and those were telling blows that perhaps the agency never recovered from.  These were both marquee accounts that had made the agency what it was.

But Nanda was a proud man and would not buckle down or give in to pressures from Sorrell or anyone else. 

In essence, Diwan Arun Nanda was a trailblazer of Indian advertising. A luminary, a marketing visionary, a mentor, and an institution-builder who influenced both brand communication and industry values deeply.