With the onset of liberalization, there was a new confidence. What was the general mood of advertising in the 1990s? In the process, I got Luna bikes, Asian Paints and Fevicol, and that became the work I became known for in that decade. Most of them regarded these brands as really boring and were more than happy to part with them. The bosses spoke to the creative teams and made a list of clients who wanted specifically Indian content-those were the accounts handed to me. It was a new role that was created for me and no one had any idea what it meant. So I was given the designation of copy chief, Indian languages. However, my entry into the creative side was rather odd, as it wasn’t easy for them to bring me over at a senior position without upsetting the existing team. Ogilvy bosses Suresh Malik and Mani Iyer came to the conclusion that I was wasting my time on the accounts side and encouraged me to hop over to the creative side of things. In 1987, I had the opportunity to write the lyrics for Mile Sur Mera Tumhara. In the late 1980s, I used to do some stuff on the side for Ogilvy’s clients who wanted work in Hindi. What were the campaigns that enabled this growth? Your career followed a remarkable trajectory from account servicing in the 1980s to a creative burst in the 1990s. Emerging after decades of drab, information-led advertising, Pandey created brands and ideas that have stood the test of time.

With his simple yet powerful storytelling, the ad industry’s favourite man with a moustache, Piyush Pandey, captured the heart of the nation in the 1990s.

Piyush pandey book