US-India Trade Deal Around The Corner?
India will not accept limits on its trading choices or rush to sign agreements, Trade Minister Piyush Goel said on Friday
On Episode 710 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Dheeraj Sinha, Group CEO - India & South Asia at FCB and President of The Advertising Club.
SHOW NOTES
(00:00) The Take
(04:41) Is a US-India trade deal really around the corner?
(10:42) Oil markets are sceptical Trump will stay committed to Russian sanctions
(11:41) Gold prices stay down but a fall is possible
(12:42) Remembering Piyush Pandey and what’s changed since his heydays?
NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on [email protected].
—
Good morning, it's Monday the 27th of October and this is Govinda Jyotiraj, usually broadcasting and streaming weekdays from Mumbai, India's financial capital, but in transit for the next two days and it is raining in many parts of India and in Mumbai, for sure, and seemingly all across the western coast apart from many other parts of Asia. So...
The Take: Does Piyush Pandey's Passing Signify The End Of Advertising As We Knew It
It looked like this would go the way of many panel discussions I've moderated over the years as a financial journalist. Opening remarks, measured points, followed by a conversation which dove into the insights that had emerged and then the future. All the panellists were prepared at least with their opening remarks which were thankfully short and succinct.
Then the next panellist, instead of picking up from where the previous one left off, stood up and announced, can we switch off the lights please and load my videos to play. The panellist was, if you've not guessed already, Adman and now late Piyush Pandey. I don't remember the exact title but what did follow was a captivating 15-minute presentation on the role of advertising in creating and building narratives.
The advertisements he played, including the Chalmedi Luna and of course Fevicol, were all known to us, having seen them numerous times on television and print. But Pandey, who joined Ogilvy India in 1982 and rose to become Executive Chairman and later Global Chief Creative Officer, stitched the films with an overarching narrative. Thunderous claps erupted at the end of his presentation.
Not because the ad films were very creative in their shooting, punchlines and tag because they were, but because the audience could now see the link between the success of products like Fevicol, which is just a blue after all, and the sheer advertising strategy and genius that lay behind the brand. It was as Dheeraj Sinha, Group CEO, India and South Asia of FCB and also President of the Advertising Club describes, the most interesting parts are where advertising was used to shift behaviours and build categories, like Cadbury's, where you sold the idea of chocolates, which were completely alien to markets such as India, on the idea of sweets. It's not just creative work, it's strategy, consumer behaviour, India understanding, category building, all brought into one.
I've had several more encounters with Pandey, mostly on news television discussions, but more than 15 years on, many of them are a blur now. But as many of his friends and clients have described in considerable eloquence in the last three days since his passing, he was a storyteller who understood and knew India. Piyush Pandey also ruled, like many advertising greats, over a world and market where messages were communicated through a twin funnel of television and print.
A single sharp message built upon an intuitive understanding of changing India could build categories, brands, products, and indeed, business empires. Many people lament, quite rightly, that we don't see Piyush Pandey anymore, though equally we don't have the same somewhat twin-pole media world that Pandey and his ilk inhabited. Media is now multiple, real-time, and consuming us all the time like an intravenous drip permanently affixed to our brain.
To create messaging in this world or build a brand is not simple. Perhaps not surprisingly, advertisers still lean on traditional channels like television to do that. A closer look at the high-decibel ad campaigns launched during an IPL cricket season, even right now, should give you an idea.
The other question is whether institutional messaging is breaking down. It may not be, but it surely takes far more firepower and resources to hold out and hold on to a message. But even if traditional advertising continues to work on the big strategy-led messaging, an increasing part of the distribution is through influencers who are their own medium and message.
Though the larger question is that of the importance of advertising itself. How would one rate the chances and role of traditional advertising today in building desires and wants for products and services, and sometimes even lifelong affinity? Does the passing of Piyush Pandey and creative giants like him signify the end of that institutional creativity as we knew it, and thus the ability to create and nurture powerful, emotional bonds with consumers? Maybe it does, maybe not. But his departure does come at a turning point in media and information consumption never seen before.
After all, there's misinformation to reckon with too. The next Piyush Pandey, whoever he or she is, has to navigate in a new technology-fuelled information order. On a hopeful note, maybe we will see newer forms of creativity that will drive both brand salience and success.
On that note, the top stories and themes for today.
Is a US-India trade deal really around the corner?
Oil markets are sceptical Trump will stay committed to Russian sanctions.
Gold prices stay down but a fall is possible.
And remembering Piyush Pandey and what's changed since his heydays.
Deal Or No Deal?
The core report has consistently argued that there is no deal even when there is one with the United States now. A good reminder of that was presented over the weekend when US President Donald Trump said he was increasing tariffs on goods imported from Canada after a province, that's the province of Ontario, aired an anti-tariff advertisement featuring former President Ronald Reagan.
In a post on social media on Saturday, Trump called the advert a fraud and lashed out at Canadian officials for not removing it ahead of a World Series Baseball Championship. He wrote that because of their serious misrepresentation of facts and hostile act, I'm increasing the tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they're paying now. After Trump on Thursday withdrew from trade talks with Canada, the Premier of Ontario said he would take down that advertisement.
So this is a fine example of the logic that drives decision-making in the United States right now, which is no logic. And also a good example of why you don't know who might say what advertently or inadvertently, which in turn could unleash a response ranging from suspension of trade to punitive tariffs. And that brings us to India.
India will not accept limits on its trading choices or rush to sign agreements, Trade Minister Piyush Goel said on Friday. Even as a senior government official told Reuters, a bilateral trade deal with Washington was very near. Goel said that India will not sign any trade deals in a hurry.
During a speech at the Berlin Global Dialogue, referring to the European Union and the United States concerns over India's continued purchases of Russian oil. Now, from a sovereign national interest point of view, India is taking the only stance any country can take in such a situation, which is mostly to stay calm and gently reiterate its position and its domestic challenges. Another reminder, we will shortly enter the seventh month of a new global trade order in which the only set of new rules are that there are no rules.
And a television advertisement can pretty much undo months of what must have been painstaking trade negotiations, as it just happened between the United States and Canada. Now, India is facing a 50% tariff on its exports to the United States, of which 25% are a punishment for importing cheaper Russian oil. The 25%, the original 25%, which is also amongst the highest in the world is bad enough.
So the ostensible target for this additional 25%, that is to make it difficult for Russia to sell oil and thus put pressure on its finances so it eventually backs off Ukraine, has not happened so far. And there is already skepticism in the oil market about the Trump administration's commitment to sanctions on Russia's two biggest oil companies, according to Reuters. Russia, incidentally, is the second largest crude producer in the world after the United States, and the two Russian companies control about 5% of global output.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is now in Asia and unveiled several trade deals looking to shore up access to critical minerals and a market for US agricultural goods just ahead of a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to a report in Bloomberg. Trump told the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, or the ASEAN, that my message to the nations of Southeast Asia is that the United States is with you 100%, and we intend to be a strong partner and friend for many generations to come. He also referred to exemptions from his reciprocal tariff regime on key exports from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Malaysia as part of the agreements.
He further expressed optimism, according to the same Bloomberg report, during a meeting with Brazilian President Lula da Silva, that they could easily strike a trade agreement as the Latin American country wants to reduce the 50% tariff on many of its goods, which of course is exactly where India is too. Trump is set to meet Xi Jinping later this week in South Korea. But ahead of this summit, Beijing has cut off soybean purchases and announced new restrictions on critical mineral exports, as we've been reporting.
Meanwhile, crude oil prices fell on Friday to $65.94 a barrel, so just under $66, while US crude futures were down to about $61.50. Oil prices are still up 7%, which is the biggest weekly rise since mid-June. So what this brings us to is that while the markets are enjoying a slightly positive run despite Friday's retreat in India, betting on a breakthrough in tariffs despite all the signals suggesting so would be a risk. On the other hand, the markets seem to have digested all the bad news and are now only braced for some good news.
But the problem is not really in the markets, it's in real business. My conversations with several business owners and logistics industry players suggest that the real pressure is starting now, in the exposed export industries like apparel and gems and jewellery amongst others. Several business owners are now going through a fair degree of stress and, at least in some cases, health conditions as they find themselves unable to negotiate their way through this impasse.
With Christmas orders having been delivered, for example, in the case of apparel, the hard part is really now because there is a blank slate and very little else. On the other hand, job losses continue in many of these export-facing, labour-intensive industries. Now, all of this is known and yet not known because the decibel levels on this issue are unfortunately quite low.
But whatever the decibel level, this is worrying to hear and there is, from all indicators, worse to come. Meanwhile, on Friday, benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty were down and they snapped a six-day winning streak. One reason attributed was, of course, the lowering of hopes of an early India-U.S. pack, which led to profit-taking.
At close, the Sensex was down 344 points to 84,211 and the Nifty was down 96 points to 25,795. Back on Wall Street, it still recorded highs as cool inflation data spurred optimism amongst investors that the Federal Reserve could stay on its rate-cutting path and boost the economy and thus justify higher valuations for equities, according to CNBC. The Dow Jones closed above 47,000 on Friday, the highest ever.
The S&P 500 Nasdaq Composite all closed at records. The September consumer price report was delayed because of the U.S. government shutdown rose 0.3% on the month, bringing the annual inflation rate to 3%, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics, and that's just below the 0.4% and 3.1% that economists polled by Dow Jones had expected, according to the CNBC report.
Russian Crude Impact
Reliance industries might face some short-term issues as it looks to replace Russian crude, which is now sanctioned by the United States.
Analysts told Reuters that given the large volumes under the Reliance-Rosneft deal, they expected some short-term friction for Reliance in securing replacement barrels. Analysts also said that Russia's medium-sized urals remain at about $5-$6 a barrel, cheaper than Middle Eastern crude of similar quality. A report by stockbroking house Jeffries last month said the impact of Reliance industries moving away from Russian oil was manageable.
It also said it received queries from investors about a possible financial impact if it halts imports of Russian oil due to sanctions, according to Reuters. Jeffries said that the benefit of Russian crude accounts for about 2.1% of Reliance's estimated consolidated earnings before interest tax and depreciation of about ₹200,000 crore for fiscal year 2027. Gold stays soft Gold prices spared losses on Friday after a slightly softer-than-expected U.S. inflation data reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut rates.
But the metal was still set for its first weekly loss in 10 weeks, according to Reuters, which also added that spot gold fell to about $4,118 per ounce after falling nearly 2% earlier in the session and is down 3% for the week. Analysts also told Reuters that if gold prices fall below $4,000, we are going to continue to see more of a dramatic washout in the market, perhaps down to $3,850, the next major support level. Other analysts told Reuters that price action suggests that gold and especially silver need another leg lower before consolidation.
Spot gold had hit a record high of $4,381 on Monday but has fallen about 6% since then as investors took in profits after they saw signs of easing on the U.S.-China trade tensions.
A New Advertising Order
India's advertising industry lost an institution and creative genius who transformed how brands communicated. Piyush Pandey, former chief creative officer worldwide and executive chairman of Ogilvy India, died at the age of 70 last week.
He was known, among other things, for breaking away from influences in Indian advertising by injecting Hindi in ad films and taglines, creating a strong cultural connect for brands with consumers across India. Now, much has changed since Pandey first changed the rules of the ad game. The game is different and media consumption is as much technology-led as it is about emotional connect.
Remember, algorithms decide what you watch, not you. How does Pandey's world contrast with the world that we are living in now and what does the near future look like? I spoke with Dheeraj Sinha, Group CEO, India and South Asia FCB and also President of the Advertising Club and I began by asking him what's fundamentally changed in the last few years.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Dheeraj Sinha: I think Piyush and, I mean, started with Piyush and then continued with Prasoon and Balki at McCann and Lowe. So, between Ogilvy, McCann and Lowe, at that point in time, it became a powerhouse of giving voice to India, giving voice to the insights of the middle class. It became a reflection of our own way of living on Indian television.
So, the idea such as Very colloquial Indian middle class insights got roped into building brands and got appointed for a commercial purpose, right? So, the country was witnessing Indian middle class stories, chuckling around them and also buying products and brands being built around it. You're talking about the 80s and 90s and through that genre.
And this was a country which was striving and therefore trying hard to find its own voice and be heard. And I think the Piyush genre of advertising gave voice to the middle class India to the confidence of being Indian. And that's what it stands for.
Of course, it helped that we belonged to a single channel, one TV household television area through a large part of this period. So, the stories were optimized for empathy and insight. Unlike today when the stories have to be optimised for a clickbait or a sharper attention point.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Okay. I'll come to that in a moment. You talked about this powerhouse of advertising agencies.
So, when you say powerhouse, you mean because they controlled all the advertising that was happening at that time?
Dheeraj Sinha: That was a time when across agencies, India found its voice. We were not replicating global advertising formats in India. Original work from India was getting done across Indian brands and global brands, say Coca-Cola work out of McCann, Cadbury work out of Ogilvy or say Surf Excel work out of Lowell & Tuss under Balki.
So, the whole body of work reflected India's self-assured confidence, its voice and was being used not just for Indian brands but for global brands. And for many of the global brands, India was perhaps the first country of departure where they went to that degree of localisation of their brand narratives and voice. And that to my mind was a powerhouse storytelling of the Indian era.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Piyush Pandey, the man, I mean, he combined obviously the administrative ability to run a large agency but was more known for his creative prowess, whether as a writer of songs or obviously many campaigns. How do you see that personality?
And again, is there a place for similar personalities today? Does the business even demand that?
Dheeraj Sinha: If you look at all the comments that are pouring in for him across LinkedIn, from clients, from people at large, I think what is sticking out is his ability to touch people, even if you had one interaction or two interactions, right? And that empathy, that insight, that ability to touch people and leave you slightly richer, slightly more interested is a quality that leadership today really needs and demands. And I think Piyush had that.
And once you have that quality, then if you're a career person or can you look at business and numbers, that becomes secondary, really, because, I mean, you will always have people to be able to run numbers or operations for you. And I think that quality is very, very important. I think Piyush also started this whole era of creative folks or folks from, say, strategy, from functional divisions becoming CEOs or MDs, because suddenly people realise that you don't have to come only from an operational background.
You could come from a deep functional background and still transcend to become a leader and a manager at large.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And what are the kind of campaigns perhaps that you hold dear from his time and success, perhaps, and have been also, in some ways, influential in the way you approached the art of advertising or the science of advertising?
Dheeraj Sinha: To my mind, the most interesting parts are where advertising was used to shift behaviours and build categories. And therefore, the work for, say, Cadbury's Kuch Meetha Ho Jai, where you sold the idea of chocolates, which were completely alien to a market such as India, on the idea of Mithais. That is fundamental strategic work.
It's not just creative work. It's strategy, consumer behaviour, India understanding, career building, all brought into one. And that's the kind of work that I'm fascinated about.
That's the kind of work that a lot of people have now started doing across categories. I mean, if you look at Amazon work and so on and so forth, it's about using cultural nudges to build categories and changing behaviours.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And as we look now at how media is consumed today and looking ahead, things have changed. So the first question really is that, how would Apiyush Pandey, if he was an active, I mean, he was active, but let's say if he was younger and starting out and trying to make a mark, how would he approach this world?
And secondly, what is the space even in general for creativity and expression at a time like this?
Dheeraj Sinha: Fundamentally, what has changed is, as I said, the idea of attention, right? I mean, there are 700 million smartphones in the country. Bulk of the content consumption is actually happening on smartphones, some on television.
You are fighting not a sense of empathy or mental understanding. You're fighting the thumb, the physical thumb for not scrolling you. And therefore, the hook, the clickbait, the line, what gets you in has become important today, which doesn't mean that empathy inside storytelling is not important.
Of course, they're important. I think the role of the structure of storytelling has reversed. So today, you want to hook the consumer or whoever you're telling the story to in the first five seconds.
You want to hook the viewer of OTT through the trailer. So hooking has become important. It reversed the structure of storytelling.
But despite AI coming on board, despite chat, GPT and mid-journey and everything, I think we still need the quality of somebody to thumb the table and say, I know this country, I know these people, and this piece will resonate and work. That decision making, that sense of judgement, that sense of insight is still very, very valuable today. And therefore, people like us still continue to have a job.
Govindraj Ethiraj: You know, one of the things that has perhaps fragmented advertising is influencers, and this is a global phenomenon. Now that in some ways, let's say, disperses the message itself, because there's no single message that an influencer takes. Influencers typically creates his or her own message, and maybe talk about a brand or a product or a service or so on.
So how do you see the role of a central message, like, you know, all the campaigns that we've seen Piyush, or for that matter, anyone in that era, which has, of course, continued or continues in some way or the other. There's a central sense of central message, central proposition, central emotional connect, and so on. And now this is a different world.
How do you see this?
Dheeraj Sinha: The shift there is that the brands are shifting from what the brand used to say to what the brand does now. So from saying to doing is the fundamental difference. Earlier you could do a 30-second or 60-second piece, and you're in full control of it.
You had enough media to pop it down, and you would make sure that 5 plus OTS and almost the whole country has seen it. The truth also is that even in the last decade, major online brands, such as Amazon, PhonePace, Spotify, and some of which I've personally worked on, have actually been built on television advertising. So you still hold those brands around the narrative.
You may not hold that around a line. I mean, I don't remember a line that continued for Amazon. We used to do it, so the lines are not so important.
The narrative is still important because the narrative has to be consistent. But you have to now hang the brand on a large narrative, which multiple creators and multiple medians can take on, make it their own. That still sounds safe, right?
So the search now is for large platforms around which you can build utilities, you can build experiences, interactions, you can rally influencers, you can build maybe an OTT programme, you can build a content. And therefore, large brand platforms around which brand actions can be assimilated is how brands are being built in today's times.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Last question, Dheeraj. Have you had the opportunity to work or encounter Piyush? I'm sure you have, but anything memorable?
Dheeraj Sinha: I mean, a lot socially, but I had a very short brush with him when I was at Bates and Bates was part of the Ogilvy system. And we were working on a campaign for AIA, doing a corporate campaign for AIA then. And I had an insight where I said that in India, you know, the value of money is actually an emotional value because you give 101 rupee as an ashirwaad or you give 501 rupee as a charhawa and you want blessings for your mother to get well, or a grandfather gives blessings.
So my whole insight of money is actually an emotional currency in India. And we weren't quite getting it. And therefore, he said that you guys should be telling stories about that one rupee and the significance of one rupee.
And therefore, we built a series of stories around how a child is saving one rupee for the mother and so on and so forth. And that captained it very well for AIA. So yeah, that's my memory of doing something which was working from a perspective with him.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And AIA is what?
Dheeraj Sinha: AIG, right? AIG would become AIA.
Govindraj Ethiraj: AIG, the insurance. Okay. Wonderful. Lovely talking to you Dheeraj. Thank you so much for joining me.
Dheeraj Sinha: Yeah. Thank you.
