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Piyush Pandey, the creative legend who changed the face and soul of Indian advertising, passed away on Thursday at the age of 70. A Padma Shri awardee, he was behind some of the country’s most memorable and beloved ad campaigns.
Often described as the man who gave Indian advertising its own voice and its unmistakable Indian accent, Pandey spent more than forty years at Ogilvy India, the agency that became almost inseparable from his name.
He joined Ogilvy in 1982 at the age of 27 as a young account executive. He tried his hand at many things, cricket, tea tasting, and even construction before finding his true calling in advertising. At the time, the agency spoke in a polished, Western tone that felt far removed from everyday India. Pandey changed that completely. He brought in the warmth, humour, and rhythm of Indian life, and made the country see itself, in its own language through the world of advertising.
He brought in a distinctly Indian voice, which is earthy, emotional, witty, and rooted in lived experience. His work made India laugh, cry, and remember. Under his creative leadership, Ogilvy became not just an advertising powerhouse, but a storyteller of the nation’s everyday dreams.
From Cadbury Dairy Milk’s infectious Kuch Khaas Hai Zindagi Mein, which celebrated unrestrained joy, to Fevikwik’s hilarious Todo Nahi, Jodo, Pandey’s ads became everyday phrases. His Vodafone campaign with the adorable pug and the line Wherever you go, our network follows turned a telecom promise into a national mascot. He gave Indian Railways its emotional Desh Ki Dhadkan, and Polio campaigns their heart-touching urgency with Do Boond Zindagi Ki. Each ad reflected his ability to find emotion in the ordinary and turn a brand message into a cultural memory.
Among his many cultural milestones, two brands stand out for how deeply they shaped our idea of ‘home’: Fevicol and Asian Paints.
The glue that held India together
When you think about it, Fevicol’s tagline, Fevicol ka mazboot jod hai, tootega nahi could well describe Piyush Pandey’s bond with India. His work connected rural markets and urban metros, colloquial humour and cinematic polish, nostalgia and ambition. He made brands feel like family heirlooms, passed from one generation to the next.
Fevicol ads were more than clever. They were a mirror to India’s humour and resilience. Whether it was the overstuffed bus that refused to fall apart or the fishermen rowing a boat patched together with Fevicol, the message was simple: this bond won’t break. Pandey turned an industrial adhesive into a symbol of reliability, friendship, and strength.
He didn’t rely on celebrity endorsements or high production gloss. He used characters and situations we all recognized, carpenters, villagers, mechanics, families and wrapped them in warmth and wit. The Fevicol brand became part of everyday vocabulary, shorthand for anything unbreakable.
What he built through Fevicol was a metaphor for India itself: chaotic but connected, diverse but inseparable.
Giving walls a voice
Then came Asian Paints. With the timeless line Har Ghar Kuch Kehta Ha (Every home tells a story), Pandey gave emotion to architecture. Paint was no longer just about colour; it became memory, belonging, and pride.
That campaign struck something deep in the Indian imagination. For a country obsessed with family and identity, the home was sacred. Pandey’s storytelling didn’t sell products, it celebrated them as witnesses to life. A wedding, a festival, a homecoming, all unfolded on those freshly painted walls.
It was marketing that didn’t shout luxury or lifestyle; it whispered love and nostalgia.
From storytelling to selling homes
As Indian real estate has grown glossier, its storytelling has grown louder. Today’s housing ads are filled with drones, sunsets, and gated promises of luxury. Yet, when they work, they still borrow from Pandey’s grammar: the family gathered for dinner, the father watching his daughter take her first steps, the return of a son to his childhood home.
Pandey understood long before analytics did that people don’t buy walls — they buy belonging. Real estate brands that remember that truth continue to resonate. The ones that forget it drown in sameness.
It’s worth asking: what would Piyush Pandey make of today’s real estate marketing? Probably that it has lost some of its warmth. His humor was never cruel, his storytelling never artificial. Even when he was selling a product, he was telling a story of people — messy, emotional, real people.
His approach was deeply Indian yet universally human. That’s what modern property advertising, chasing international aesthetics, often forgets — that aspiration doesn’t have to mean detachment. Pandey’s India was aspirational without being alienating.
The architect of feeling
Piyush Pandey’s genius wasn’t in inventing new emotions, it was in rediscovering the old ones we had forgotten to notice. He understood that the Indian consumer’s relationship with space, colour, and material wasn’t transactional. It was deeply personal.
Under his leadership, Ogilvy India became an agency that didn’t just make ads, it built relationships. It spoke the language of the street, the courtyard, the kitchen, and the carpentry shop. And it did so with dignity and humour.
Pandey often said he wanted to make ads his mother could understand and enjoy. That instinct to communicate simply, truthfully, and with heart made his work timeless.
Beyond advertising
To remember Piyush Pandey is to remember a certain India, one that believed emotion could be crafted with as much care as architecture. He gave us laughter that stuck, colours that comforted, and words that built homes in our minds long before we could afford them in brick and mortar.
As the real estate world today builds taller and faster, it’s worth revisiting Pandey’s quieter lesson: that the soul of any space lies not in what it contains, but in what it makes people feel.
