Piyush Pandey

Piyush Pandey – Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide & Executive Chairman, India

He has been with Ogilvy for over 36 years, and since January 2019 in his current role. He started as an account executive and moved to creative in 1988.

In 2016, he became the first ‘pure’ advertising person to be honoured with the national civilian award ‘Padma Shri’. He was the first Asian to chair the Cannes Jury in 2004. He was awarded the lifetime achievement award by Clio, New York in 2012 and by the AAAI in India in 2010. Piyush has been a brand ambassador for Indian advertising at many international and Indian forums and was also a mentor at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.

Piyush is best known for his creative work. He believes advertising must talk to the hearts of people and the best reward of good work is when people on the streets it is aimed at, talk about it. His work has won over 1,000 awards nationally and internationally. He commands great respect, particularly within the Indian client fraternity because of the number of brands he has partnered to build.

His most famous campaigns include Asian Paints (har ghar kuch kehta hai - every house has a story to tell), Cadbury (kuch khas hai hum sabhi mein - real taste of life), Fevicol (Fevicol ka jod hai, toote ga nahi - the unbreakable bond of Fevicol), SBI Life (heere ko kya pata tumhari umar - diamond doesn’t know your age) to name a few. He also led the campaign that brought the BJP to national power in 2014 with the famous lines abki baar Modi Sarkar - this time Modi government and ache din aane wale hain - good days are going to come.

Unlike the Ambanis and Bill Gates who have money to donate for social causes, he believes people in advertising can use their creativity to drive social change. He has done many memorable social campaigns - one he is particularly proud about, is his work with UNICEF to make India a polio-free country. He has documented his advertising philosophy and thoughts behind his famous campaigns in his book ‘Pandeymonium’. In June 2018, Piyush alongwith his brother Prasoon Pandey was awarded the Lion of St. Mark at the International Festival of Creativity at Cannes.

Before joining advertising, Piyush was a state-level cricketer (cricket is his other big passion) and a tea-taster. He is married to a former colleague Nita and has 6 dogs.

Contact Piyush.

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