Piyush Pandey installed WhatsApp because of the BJP election campaign

Ad veteran Piyush Pandey likes things old school. Yet it still came as a surprise when Pandey, in a lighter vein, revealed that one of the best things to have happened thanks to the BJP election campaign he and his team earned the kudos for, was him beginning to use WhatsApp.

Pandey spoke to ETPanache at the launch of The Walk to the Capital, a book narrating the story of how ad agency Soho Square cracked a historic campaign that helped BJP march to power. "While my colleagues were in Mumbai editing, I would be in Goa, Delhi or other places. One day my brother (Prasoon Pandey) told his producer, Cyrus Pagdiwala and another colleague, 'Take his bloody phone, install WhatsApp and teach him how to use it,'" says Pandey, laughing.

"I like to use my phone to talk to people, a lot better than sending a message. In this case, I needed to see commercials, print ads, hear radio spots; hence, I needed WhatsApp. If there was a way to describe the creatives to me over the phone and I could see it in my head, I probably would not have been using the app."

The campaign is behind him, but Pandey isn't off WhatsApp. He uses it to share photos on the family group. Yet he's still not hot on social media, admitting that he's technologically challenged. "I do not even use email. I dictate them to my assistant and she gives me a printout of the replies," he says.