Piyush Pandey steps down after bringing Bharat to Indian advertising

A (then) pan-masala chomping man notorious for putting down management theories, strategic thinking, and all the stuff that agencies thought was going to save them

Cadbury’s iconic Kuch Khaas Hai Zindagi Mein campaign by Ogilvy & Mather (now Ogilvy) had just released in 1993. The funny, heartwarming 30-seconder of a girl running onto a cricket pitch eating a chocolate helped reposition it as a grown-up indulgence too. In a rapidly liberalising India stepping out of its ‘Doordarshan only’ days, the thought was so different that A&M (Advertising & Marketing), the magazine I had just joined, asked me to interview the man who created it. Piyush Pandey and his colleague Sonal Dabral were such regular joes that one wondered: In a world dominated by creative giants