The most difficult ad of our lives: Ogilvy’s heartfelt farewell to Piyush Pandey

When one of India’s greatest creative minds passes, words feel inadequate. And Ogilvy — the agency he built, led, and loved, found the perfect way to express that.

In a full-page tribute titled, The most difficult ad of our lives, published in The Times of India on Saturday, Ogilvy India paid an emotional farewell to its Executive Chairman and Chief Creative Officer (South Asia), Piyush Pandey, the adman who changed how India thought, felt, and spoke about brands.

“How do you talk about Piyush Pandey in one page?” the tribute begins. “It’s like trying to capture the sun in a sewing box.”

True to the simplicity he championed, the ad resists a grand eulogy, instead choosing to write as Piyush taught them to, “keep it simple and say only what matters.” What mattered, Ogilvy says, was “waking up early and writing… waking up his team and his production partners the minute he had an idea.”

The piece evokes the man behind the moustache with vivid intimacy, the mentor who’d walk into meetings saying, “Front foot pe khelo,” and step out with a smile, always taking a moment to say, “Well played, partner.”
The creative visionary who “brought cricket into all the wisdom he imparted,” and the leader who “stood in front of us like a dad”, scolding like one too, but always with love. “He scolded us like a dad. A few hours later he would call with a joke. His way of saying, ‘I scold you, but I love you.’”

The ad is as much about the man’s values as his work. “Love brings us to family. Family mattered to Piyush,” it says, recalling a man who managed to be “100% for his work and 1000% for his family, a math only Piyush could pull off.”

Laughter, the agency notes, was his other great love. “Once he thought of a joke, he had to say it. Even if it was in a client meeting.”

And clients loved him for it. “When he said, ‘Trust me,’ clients trusted him… When he said, ‘Yeh badiya banega,’ there was no question of questioning it.”

There are stories tucked into every paragraph, from his research style (“He would share ad films with his staff and ask them if they liked it. No modules. No big or small data. Just one human to another”) to his philosophy on awards: “If his work won an award but his neighbours didn’t like it, he wouldn’t care. People must love it first, he believed.”

The tribute recalls his 2018 Cannes Lions honour with his brother Prasoon Pandey the first Asian to win the Lion of St. Mark and notes, with typical warmth, that “it was one of the very few days Piyush was not wearing his simple shirt… He was dressed in a formal attire. This must have taken some real convincing because Piyush loved his shirts.”

Perhaps the most touching lines come toward the end, a summation of the spirit that made him who he was: “Ideas. Laughter. Songs. Writing. Family. Team. Moustache. Hindi. People. Ogilvy. This is how we want to remember him. Through things that mattered to him.”

And then, the closing line that feels like Piyush himself speaking through his team:“We hope the heavens are ready for the force that is Piyush Pandey. He will walk in and lead with a joke.”