One made a name in the Calcutta advertising circuit and won fame in Satyajit Ray films. Another has won hearts with memorable and award-winning ad campaigns over decades. Sundar Chaterji — better known as Dhritiman — and Piyush Pandey — synonymous with Ogilvy & Mather — were honoured at the Advertising Club Calcutta Hall of Fame 2017, in association with The Telegraph, at the Calcutta Rowing Club, amidst music, ad banter and a welcome dash of creativity in the air.
Piyush Pandey and Sundar ‘Dhritiman’ Chaterji with their awards at the Calcutta Rowing Club. While Pandey was inducted into the Advertising Club Calcutta’s Hall of Fame, Chaterji received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Chaterji flanked by (left) Chandan Roy Choudhury, secretary, Calcutta Rowing Club, and Miraj D. Shah, vice-chairman, The Bhawanipur Education Society College. The veteran adman and actor said: “It’s wonderful to receive an award from a community that you once belonged to. But a lifetime achievement award is almost saying you have come to the end of your life cycle.... Mrinalda (Sen, filmmaker) had once written a book called Always Being Born and that is the motto that keeps me going.”
Pandey being felicitated by (left to right) Sandip Chaudhuri, programme director, CMI, Kanchan Datta, president, Advertising Club Calcutta, Sidhartha Roy, CEO, Response India, Noomi Mehta, chairman and MD, Selvel One, and Sumanto Chattopadhyay, executive creative director, Ogilvy & Mather, South Asia. “Advertising is not bloody rocket science, it’s common sense.... It’s been a fabulous journey,” said Pandey.
Anjan Dutt, with friend Amyt Datta on the guitar, rolled out classics like Bob Dylan’s Mr Tambourine Man, Leonard Cohen’s Bird on the Wire and Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World, alongside some of his new Bengali numbers. “2441139...” came the request from the audience but Dutt did not oblige. Later, t2 asked why. “Bela Bose... Ranjana... are passe, they are over. We need to outgrow... I would rather sing a song that talks about today,” said the singer-filmmaker-actor.
MIR-SPEAK
Mir, one of the guests for the evening, came up with witty taglines for some newsmakers, only for t2.
Donald Trump: Duck off!
Demonetisation: The Mitron effect.
Virat Kohli: As virat as it can get.
Piyush Pandey: He is the Gangasagar of advertising. You can put everybody in a group and you will have to put Piyush Pandey in a separate group.
Earlier in the morning, Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and creative director, Ogilvy & Mather, India and South Asia, gave ‘Kuch Khaas’ insights into the profession in an interaction with Kanchan Datta, president, Advertising Club Calcutta, and founder, Inner Circle Advertising, at ITC Sonar. Excerpts:
Mr Pandey, did you join advertising straight away in Calcutta?
No, when I was in a tea company in Calcutta, Tea Manufacturing and Marketing Consultants (TM&MC), I used to have a friend in J. Walter Thompson called Debnath Guharoy. I saw the kind of work lying around in his house. And my friend Arun Lal, and his wife, said, ‘Yaar, you are cracking these things 10 times in a day without a reason. So why don’t you do it for a reason and get into advertising?’ (Laughs) I decided to go to Bombay in 1982 because the action was more out there. Fortunately, I got a job as a trainee account executive at Ogilvy (& Mather).
So you started with servicing and became a creative god...
(Laughs) See, 1982 had the Asiad and that was when the TV revolution started in this country. And most of the people who were in creative that time were very English-based people. Everyone had a need for things to be done with Indian culture, Hindi in mind. So I was helping other account supervisors without being in creative. And that’s when Suresh Malik (ex-boss) caught me writing copy and said, ‘What are you doing there? You come this side’.
People in advertising are known to switch jobs in a blink... you’ve been rooted to Ogilvy & Mather for decades...
Why do people change companies? As it bores them, which was not the case with me. I was doing some very exciting work. People change companies for more money. I was being paid what I thought I should be paid. Thirdly, people change companies to start their own companies... they want their names on the board. I think at Ogilvy my name is not on the board but the board is made out of it (laughs).
Advertising has to be language neutral, right?
If you look at the Fevicol ads, about 80 per cent of them don’t have a single line. Even when I did the Fevikwik ad with the fish, even in the Hindi ad I made the fellow say onnu, rendu, moonu, naalu (one, two, three, four in Tamil) and that gave it character. If he had said ek, do, teen, chaar, it would have looked odd on him. And it had no other words!
Who in your opinion is the god today, the client or the consumer?
It will always be the consumer. A client who thinks he is god is going to go bust faster than others.
Will digital in the long run be a deterrent in creating inspiring work?
If you use it well, it has got so much power to do so much for very little money. If you misuse it then it’s no point. Look at last year’s campaign on Make Love Not Scars, the Reshma campaign. They didn’t have any money. But it had the power to go viral without you pumping in money to try and make it go viral. Creativity will be at the heart of any new media that comes.
Yashodeep Sengupta
Pictures: Rashbehari Das
