End Of The Captain’s Innings

January 2024 marks a new chapter for Ogilvy India as its long-time boss, Piyush Pandey, transitions into an advisory role. For Pandey, the new role will continue seeing him in the game that he has passionately pursued, challenged and changed over the last 41 years.

As the New Year, and with it the new regime in Ogilvy India, sets in, what will change for the agency and you?
Succession plans have to be smooth and done at the right time. What changes is that I play the role of an advisor, mentor and guide, letting the team use me rather than using myself as an authority to use them. This is the way teams are built. To quote a cricket example, Rohit Sharma is the current captain but Virat Kohli is still playing in the team and this is not the first such instance. You stay in the game and be mature enough to have captains growing.

The current leadership has been part of the team for a while now, doing great work. They have learned from me and I have learned from them. They know what to do. If there are parts of the job they have not addressed before, I am there as the sounding board. In the end, they have to do it, but I am here to help where and when required.

Creativity is core to Ogilvy but we have heard about the growth in tech enablement as part of the agency’s ‘twin peaks’. How do you see the latter pick up in 2024?
There are some tech skills that we need and some that we do not need as our holding company, WPP, has many people who can do that. We collaborate so why should we have another set doing the same work within the agency?

Last year, WPP merged VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson, retiring J. Walter Thompson and Young & Rubicam. What does this indicate for creative agencies? Can this happen to Ogilvy at some point?
If they are relevant and strong in the marketplace, there is no reason for any agency brand to retire. Holding companies do not make them disappear because it is not in their interest to integrate three agency brands into one. They would love to have more if they are relevant. Companies can bring brands together only when they see some benefit but why would they do that to a strong and thriving agency brand?

How do you see the creative process changing with artificial intelligence (AI) gaining momentum?
I am still a believer in real intelligence rather than AI. It does not matter what stage we are in, the creative process will always be idea-first. You can use tech to enhance your idea but AI can only copy someone else’s idea, it cannot create one. Embrace technology but use it to benefit you. An example would be the ‘Not just a Cadbury ad’ campaign which shook up the market and won a Titanium Lion at Cannes. The idea was not deepfake or AI but what touches people. Cadbury got someone like Shah Rukh Khan to advertise for small retailers who do not have the money to advertise at all. That was the heart of the campaign and the technology allowed a wider, deeper impact. No one will come and tell you, what fantastic use of technology. They will tell you, what a fantastic idea.

We encourage our teams to come up with original ideas. Generative AI will need broader solutions, where governments will come into play. But for now, we need to keep our teams believing in original ideas and not succumbing to tech-enabled shortcuts.

If we had to broaden this conversation to marketing, what do you see changing?
Marketing is not changing, only expressions are. You have a product or a concept and you want to sell more of it. There are different vehicles for that. Take performance marketing as a case. People look at it as god’s gift but are others not looking to perform? It is not marketing if you put things on a rack saying this is available. It is like when you drive from Mumbai to Pune and in the season, you see people selling watermelons. There are 50 of them sitting together. Is that performance marketing? If one of them has designed and presented his point of sale better, created an experience and connected with people in some fashion, then that is branding. Otherwise, it is an IIM or B-school gimmick.

You are not a big fan of my next question but I am curious to know -- if you had to pick memorable moments in your career, what would they be?
I do think it is not a correct question. In a long career, if you remain relevant, there will be many highlights. I don’t compare successes that were at different points in time. It is like asking whether Don Bradman is better or Sachin Tendulkar. They represented two different eras and two different ways of playing. I cannot compare what I did in the 80s with the 90s or this century. I look at whether I did something that made a difference then.

One of ‘the favourite’ campaigns of my life is polio. We worked on it for many years with the Ministry of Health, Unicef and Mr (Amitabh) Bachchan, and when India was declared polio-free in 2014, I cried. Because I was part of something that made a difference to society. When something such as this is discussed in the future as well, it would be a challenge I am willing to take on.