Kuch khaas thhe

And so our beloved Piyush Pandey has passed away If a Ranji trophy career had materialised for him would cricket have gained and ldquothe communication businessrdquo have lost Irsquod have to say modern Indian advertising can be divided into the prePiyush and postPiyush periods Every business has a poster boy and Piyush was oursIrsquove always wondered why we had only one titan in our business Was it the times we live in did he shape Indian advertising so acutely that we only have place for onePiyush Pandey didnrsquot invent Indian advertising mdash that would be a great disservice to the giants who walked the ad universe before him mdash My dad my two uncles Kersey Katrak and Gerson daCunha Alyque Padamsee Mohammed Khan Chris Rozario Frank Simoes etcBut he did give Indian advertising a grammar that was ours he broke it down allowed the heartland of India to breathe its ldquoeveryday speakrdquo into our business He simplified the language He created aesthetic insightsHis creative outlook was the ldquoturning pointrdquo mdash he created an environment for excellenceIn the late 80searly 90s we had two kinds of advertising agencies1 The multinationals strategy led ldquosuitsrdquo dominated2 The boutiquescreative shopsOgilvy amp Mather belonged to the former categoryI remember the day Ogilvy amp Mather decided they needed a change of imageKersey Katrakrsquos MCM had spawned boutiquescreative shops Arun Nandafounded Rediffusion Ravi Gupta began Trikaya mdash these were start ups and the two mavericks determined the kind of clients they wanted and therefore would drive the kind of creative work they producedOampM had a multinational backstory a backstory by and large guided by ldquosuitsrdquo mdash Piyush was already in OampM hersquod written the ldquomile surrdquo song Itrsquos a hard one to turn a creative workspace one thatrsquos used to functional advertising into a ldquoflash gordonrdquoone It was then that Ranjan Kapur took over the reigns as CEO together Piyush and he turned the Titanic within a year a creaky lsquosafersquo orgnisation became a hotshopClients headed to Apeejay House Churchgate in droves Piyush greatest gift was his rapport with clients And the respect he gained from themClients loved him they felt their brands were in safe hands Creative people tend to be wary of clients but not Piyush he won them overPiyush embraced clients he empathized with them The dream of all advertising creative people is to get the trust of your client so he ldquobuysrdquo your work work that will stand out in the clutter work that the client will put bucks behindWith if ever there was an oxymoron Piyush Panday gave his clients risky responsible work mdash Piyush didnrsquot push for awards He knew they would come if the work had an aethetically powerful insight That the brand would have a benefit not produced in the factory the power of a proposition translating into poetry For Asian Paints his ldquohar ghar kuch kehta hairdquo didnrsquot just sell a better paint the promise was how it would create the ldquoaura of your homerdquoUnlike his predecessors Piyush understood film He believed in the overall impact of a piece of communication ndash and so his greatest campaign was born for Fevicol For me ldquothe Fevicol bus adrdquo is still the greatest TV advert to emerge from India mdash to take such a low interest product as a sticky glue and build it into such a memorable campaign is geniusHe was a Mad Manhellip not a Madison Avenue man but a genuine mad man all the same he thought out of the box more than mostIf something were to be placed at his feet it would be the art of telling stories identifiable Indian stories with humour that would be his legacyAnd as Piyush passes into the ether I wonder about our business the ad business the story telling business the crafting of sentiment the humour of the heartlandIn his world AI would stand for ldquoAmazing InsightrdquoRest well Piyush Pandey our jodi with you will forever be strongRahul daCunha is an adman theatre directorplaywright filmmaker and traveller Reach him at rahuldacunhamiddaycom