Singapore – With more than 1.1 billion citizens to market products to, Indian advertisers have learned the importance of making their voices heard by the people on the streets. As a result, many of the country’s agencies have emerged as creative powerhouses, regularly producing work that has been both commercially and critically successful.

In his seminar, Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and creative director, Ogilvy & Mather India and South Asia, and president of the Spikes Asia Craft jury, explored how this remarkable success has been achieved and what agencies in other Asian countries can do to mirror India’s impressive output.

He showcased some of the best of Indian advertising, with campaigns such as Perfetti Van Melle’s ‘Happydent’ (McCann Erickson), Nike Cricket (JWT), Asian Paints Apcolite (O&M) and The Times of India’s (TOI) ‘A day in the life of Chennai’ (JWT).
These campaigns aside from injecting humor and drama used local issues as its inspiration. It could be a take on political issues or social culture that can even include beliefs and superstitions.
Pandey shared that he also used his own large family as inspiration to create advertising.
Another typical to the Indian culture is the turn of phrase. Pandey said Coca-Cola’s Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola was an example of this. “Thanda“ in Hindi means cold, and people mostly used cold drinks instead of soft drinks when ordering or buying. Because of this, Coca-Cola wanted to own the term “Thanda”.
Indian advertising, according to Pandey, has successfully been used to make a light-hearted social comment about Indian life.
(With additional reports from Media)
