Tributes have been pouring in for Piyush Pandey, the advertising legend behind Fevicol and Cadbury who passed away on Friday at the age of 70.

Pandey worked at Ogilvy India for more than forty years and created campaigns that everyone in India knows. His last rites were held on Saturday at 11am at Shivaji Park in Mumbai.

When Pandey started at Ogilvy back in 1982, most ads used polished English and westernised settings. He chucked that rulebook out. His campaigns spoke in Hindi, in humour, in the small moments every Indian recognised.

Many say the magic of his ads was the fact that he didn’t talk down to people. He spoke to them. A colleague said, “He changed not just the language of Indian advertising. He changed its grammar.”

His ideas even reached Indian politics. The famous line, “Ab ki baar, Modi sarkar” is widely credited to his team and became a central slogan in 2014. It stuck because he knew how to capture a public mood. 

His work wasn’t all for profit, either. He lent his skill to the Polio eradication campaign and gave us the unifying anthem Mile Sur Mera Tumhara. He received the Padma Shri in 2016, the Lion of St. Mark at Cannes in 2018, and the LIA Legend Award in 2024.He once said, “A Brian Lara can’t win for the West Indies alone. Then who am I?”

 The responses show how far his reach extended. Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote he would “cherish our interactions.”

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman called him a “titan” who brought genuine warmth into communication. Uday Kotak recalled Pandey’s knack for simple, human lines; friend Suhel Seth called him a patriot and a fine gentleman.