Piyush Pandey, the creative force who gave Indian advertising its ‘voice’, passes away

New Delhi: Piyush Pandey, the legendary adman who reshaped Indian advertising with insight, humour and a distinctly Indian tone, passed away on Thursday, after a month of illness.

He spent more than four decades at Ogilvy India, where his work and leadership defined the agency’s creative culture and influenced generations of practitioners. 

Pandey joined Ogilvy in 1982 and helped move brand communication out of boardrooms and into everyday Indian life. His campaigns for Asian Paints, Cadbury, Fevicol and Hutch became popular culture, not just commercials, and set a new benchmark for work in Indian languages. 

Under his watch, Ogilvy India grew into one of the most awarded agencies in the world. In 2018, Piyush and his brother, filmmaker Prasoon Pandey, became the first Asians to receive the Lion of St. Mark at Cannes Lions, recognising a lifetime of creative achievement. 

He believed advertising must touch people first and impress them later. “Somewhere, you need to touch the hearts,” he often said, a line that captured his approach to strategy and craft. 

Pandey stepped down as Executive Chairman of Ogilvy India in 2023 to take on an advisory role, closing a chapter that many in the industry credit with giving Indian advertising its confidence and identity. 

Beyond brands, his influence travelled into public life. He helped shape one of India’s most remembered political slogans of the last decade, and his deeper legacy lies in the storytellers he mentored and inspired. 

Tributes from across agencies, marketers and filmmakers are pouring in for the man whose moustache, laugh and love for the game, cricket and advertising, became part of industry folklore. As colleagues often said, he made teams better and the work braver.

BestMediaInfo will update this story as more details are shared by the family and Ogilvy India.