Adman Piyush Pandey encourages India's top spies to write poetry

NEW DELHI: India's top secret agents had a "commercial break" from their routine on Friday with advertising guru Piyush Pandey taking them to the world of marketing and suggesting that they should write "sher-o-shairi" in their office memorandum.

"Ideas should be free flowing to bring out best of creativity in a person," Pandey, executive chairman and national creative director at Ogilvy & Mather (O&M) India, said while delivering the ninth R N Kao Memorial Lecture organised in the memory of legendary spymaster and founder of India's external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Describing Kao as a leader, Pandey told an audience of several serving and former spymasters that to encourage creativity leaders must not always adhere to rules.

To a question on how would he like to market an organisation like RAW, Pandey — who has launched several successful advertisement campaigns over the past three decades — said, "That's a secret," triggering peels of laughter.

People who have given Kao memorial lectures in the past include Vice President Hamid Ansari, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, former Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, former Indian envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, SK Lambah, and former President APJ Abdul Kalam.