Pandeymonium by Piyush Pandey- Book Review

January 08, 2016 6 Comments

pandemonium  [pan-duh-moh-nee-uh m] noun




1.Wild uproar or unrestrained disorder; tumult or chaos.
2. a place or scene of riotous uproar or utter chaos.
3. (often initial capital letter) the abode of all the demons.
4. hell.

pandeymonium

[pan-dey-moh-nee-uh m]noun


1.A Great read, juicy, succulent and something that you will bite with all your teeth.
2. a good read on advertising, advertising via Piyush Pandey Way.
3. Engrossing book, Unputdownable 

He Wrote a Book, Look at his Mooch


I'm not great fans of autobiographies as such but when I heard about the book by Piyush Pandey, the new age advertising legend, I was quite kicked about reading this book. Being in an early aficionado of advertising and a marketing professional myself, advertising is something very close to my heart. I read this subject with great interest.

The few things that I anticipated was an ever brilliant presentation, tongue in cheek writing style and loads of interesting anecdotes into the creative world of our ad-man. I secretly hoped it to become no 1 bestseller so it may make me come out of my "not reading much" shell and review.

Nevertheless, with a little help from Penguin Random house team, I picked the book to read. Here's my quick review of the book.

What: The Book- Pandemonium
Author - Piyush Pandey
Pages- 239 pages
Price- Rs. 531 [Amazon India]
Genre: Advertising/ autobiography

Pandemonium is Piyush Pandey' take on contemporary Indian advertising, his own straight from pen experiences and it also talks about the myriad influences that shaped the career of this advertising legend, decade after decade. 

The book is segmented into 5 parts viz-
1) Everyone and everything around you is a teacher
2) Kindergarten Truths about Advertising
3) So much Complexity is found in simplicity
4) Ogilvy & Me
5) Advertising Today and Tomorrow

Language- the book is written in a bonhomie, easy way and borders on being a totally addictive read. It is inundated with suitable pictorial references at many points and is an absolute page turner. To break the monotony of my reading, I picked different chapters randomly and some of my most liked chapter is- "Don't forget the child in You" and "Lala is not a four-letter word"

You can read few excerpts here


About The Author- Piyush Pandey is a name to reckon with in Indian Advertising [Ogilvy & Mather]. We need not get in who is Piyush Pandey, rather let me tell you about his work which speak for itself. Some of his works are- "Cadbury Kuch khaas hai cricket ad", "Fevicol campaign" [He is the guy who made Fevicol famous before Kareen Kapoor], "Vodafone Happy To Help Campaign", "MP Tourism", Limca, Center fresh, Satyamev Jayate TVC amongst others.


The book begins with his early life including his kleptomaniac traits wherein he would borrow ideas from his mother, wife Nita including one of the most popular campaign "Googly Wooghly wooksh". The book fluidically progresses to other stories including the storyboards and interesting behind the scenes from the numerous ads he created. The storytelling ends with author answering the quintessential question "Will he start his own agency". Needless to say, the book doesn't disappoint me and in spite of being, self-claimed meager reader, I was all hooked to it.


What I felt that the book lacked: The book talks about his inspiration and the great campaigns that he created/ executed. However, one thing amiss was the lack of in-depth detailing behind the creative process [few at least]. While there were hints and mentions, it at times appeared more like his muificent, festoony, thanksgiving fare to his client [which he should] but with lesser meat as expected. It was his first book [Thank you Mr. Rangaswami for coercing] Nevertheless, I am pretty sure a lot of that will come in his next books.

The Book gave me many a deja vu moments. A lot of things that he said like retaining the child in you, family as best google for answers, thinking out of ivory tower are things that I always believed in. "Good clients gets good work" takes the cake.

The cover page and overall design is prepossessing. All kudos goes to Suresh Natrajan [cover image] and Rajiv Rao for the clinquant design.

The book will surely transport you back in advertising times, talking about campaigns that were creatively crafted from heart including my recent favorite one on "Fortune Cooking oil"- Teri aanch ka utara, juban se chakh liya [revered the food cooked in your kitchen by you mom] campaign. 

I do not want to give away a lot about the book here. Go ahead and treat yourself with this book-gasm and do let us know what you feel.

Highly Recommended!!!

And yes, he wrote a book...Look at his Moustache!

Numerounity
AKA
Ekta Khetan

@numerounity [Twitter]
@ektakhetan [instagran]
@inumerounity [google+]

The autor is half Human, half machine. Go Figure or just revel in what I write

6 comments:

  1. I'm not a fanof Autobiographies either. But this one seems interesting

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yup...It is written in simplistic manner and gives some instances in P's world.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous10 January

    Intriguing! Seems like there will be a thing to two to relate for everyone and to learn too. The simplistic manner it's written in sure makes it worth picking up and finishing it :) Thanks for the review Ekta!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds like a clever book! And yes, his mooch is amazing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, he kept on repeating...I wrote a book, look at my mooch.The book is clever.

      Delete

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