“You are not going to know something completely from day one. You have to be inspired to
learn more; and inspiration comes from communication”, said Piyush Pandey.
Piyush Pandey has won multiple awards for his work in
advertising over the years with the Fevikwik and Cadbury commercials awarded as
the Advertisement and Campaign of the century respectively. It all culminated
for him in the year 2016 when he was honoured with the Padma Shri award for his
contribution towards the Indian Advertising Industry.
Goa Institute of Management in association with Ribandar Talks
was proud to host the celebrated Advertising Guru Piyush Pandey, Co-Executive
Chairman, Ogilvy and Mather Private Limited at its campus in Sanquelim. Pandey
spoke on the topic ‘Think Local and Influence a Nation.’
Speaking on the topic ‘Think local and influence a nation’,
Pandey emphasised on the fact that advertising is not rocket science. Further
elaborating on the topic, he explained how certain locations play an important
role in culture and said ‘’Respect location and learn from them, everyone has a
distinct location and we can learn from them by getting exposed and
communicating with each other”. He also explained how he observed the
environment around him and respected it, which is the reason why his ads
travelled far and wide. He urged students to bring out the emotional connect
present in certain locations and cultural nuances which can form a link with
audiences.
Interspersing his talk with snippets from some of the more
popular advertisements created by him creating a mood of nostalgia amongst the
students especially when the much-loved and appreciated Fevicol ads were
played. The ad was created in various languages. Pandey explained that the
reason behind these advertisements becoming a runaway hit throughout the nation
despite being in regional languages was because, there were no heavy local
nuances present in the ad which may alienate the audience. “The primary motive
behind localising the theme is not to offend anyone but instead use the
opportunity to bring together our cultures and festivities so that the entire
country understands the common emotion pertaining to them,” he explained.
Most of his advertisements have had the strong essence of
underlying emotional connect to the audience, which was visible in the next
segment that he played which consisted of ads created for Asian Paints, Cadbury
and Madhya Pradesh-Incredible India. “Inspiration is relevant to emotional
context, and since we are a country of great folklore and whole lot of other
stuff, it is both easy and important to find things that people would enjoy and
connect to on a personal level” he said.
He then moved onto the famous 5 Star and Centre Fresh ads which
sent ripples of laughter across the audience and also sent the message across
that it is not only the location or society that influences an idea but our own
memories. A sense of humour also play an essential role in the creative
process.
The final portion had the Times of India, The Hindu and Red
Label ads wherein the objective was to challenge the social norms or the ideas
prevalent in our society. Pandey strongly believes that the country is going
through a social change and there is a tenacious need of highlighting this
shift in ideologies in a positive light.
He
signed off from the event with a final thought on the significance of
creativity storytelling and emotional connect whilst pointing out that, “It’s
not about what things you say in an advertisement, what matters is how you say
it.”