AD Agencies
Vanita Keswani steps away from Madison after 30 years
MUMBAI: After nearly three decades of shaping Indian media buying and strategy, Vanita Keswani has called time on her long and influential innings at Madison World.
Keswani, who has been CEO of Madison Media Sigma since 2015, exits the group after a career that mirrors the modern evolution of India’s media industry itself. Calm, commercial and quietly formidable, she has been one of the most recognisable leadership faces within the Madison network.
Her Madison story began in 1995, when she joined as an account manager on the Coca-Cola business. Over the next twenty years, she rose steadily through the ranks, handling marquee accounts such as Godrej Consumer, leading large client portfolios as business director and general manager, and eventually being named COO in 2012. Three years later, she was elevated to CEO, taking full charge of Madison Media Sigma’s growth agenda.
As CEO, Keswani steered the agency through a period of rapid change, balancing traditional media strengths with an increasing focus on digital growth and innovation. She managed the company’s P&L, led the core business development and training teams, and played a central role in driving media solutions that delivered tangible business results for clients.
Her tenure was marked by consistent new business wins, strong organic growth from existing clients and a steady stream of industry accolades. Under her leadership, Madison Media Sigma teams picked up awards across platforms such as the Emvies, Abbys, Prime Time Awards, OACs and Golden Mikes. Keswani herself was recognised among Impact magazine’s Top 50 Most Influential Women in Media.
Beyond the boardroom, she has been a visible industry voice, regularly serving as a panelist and moderator at advertising and marketing forums. She is also a visiting faculty member at postgraduate institutes, sharing practical leadership lessons shaped by decades on the frontlines of media.
Her professional grounding was built early, with stints at Bennett Coleman and Co, where she worked in sales and marketing for Times FM, and earlier as product manager for flagship magazines such as Femina and Filmfare. Along the way, she invested in leadership development through programmes at ISB and with global leadership thinkers.
With her departure, Madison closes a significant chapter in its history. Keswani leaves behind a legacy defined not by noise, but by consistency, clarity and results. In an industry that thrives on constant change, her career stands as proof that steady leadership can still make the loudest impact.
AD Agencies
Fevicol releases its last ad campaign by the late Piyush Pandey
The adhesive brand’s last campaign by the late advertising legend Piyush Pandey turns an everyday Indian obsession into a quietly powerful metaphor
MUMBAI: Fevicol has never needed much of a plot. A sticky bond, a wry observation, a truth that every Indian instantly recognises — that has always been enough. “Kursi Pe Nazar,” the brand’s latest television commercial, is no different. And yet it carries a weight that no previous Fevicol film has had to bear: it is the last one its creator, the advertising legend Piyush Pandey, will ever make.
The film, released on Tuesday by Pidilite Industries, fixes its gaze on the kursi — the chair — and what it means in Indian life. Not just as a piece of furniture, but as a currency of ambition, a vessel of authority, and a source of quiet social drama that plays out in every home, office and institution across the country. Who sits in the chair, who waits for it, and who eyes it hungrily from across the room: the film transforms this sharply observed cultural truth into a narrative that is, in the best Fevicol tradition, funny, warm and instantly familiar.
The campaign was Pandey’s idea. He discussed it in detail with the team before his death, but did not live to see it shot. Prasoon Pandey, director at Corcoise Films who helmed the commercial, said the team needed five months to find its footing before they felt ready to shoot. “This was the toughest film ever for all of us,” he said. “It was Piyush’s idea, magical as always.”
The emotional weight of that responsibility was not lost on the team at Ogilvy India, which created the campaign. Kainaz Karmakar and Harshad Rajadhyaksha, group chief creative officers at Ogilvy India, described the process as “a pilgrimage of sorts, on the path that Piyush created not just for Ogilvy, but for our entire profession.”
Sudhanshu Vats, managing director of Pidilite Industries, said the film was rooted in a distinctly Indian insight. “The ‘kursi’ symbolises aspiration, transition, and ambition,” he said. “Piyush Pandey had an extraordinary ability to elevate such everyday observations into iconic storytelling for Fevicol. This film carries that legacy forward.”
That legacy is considerable. Over several decades, Pandey’s partnership with Fevicol produced some of the most beloved advertising in Indian history, building the brand into something rare: a household name that people actively enjoy watching sell to them.
“Kursi Pe Nazar” does not try to be a tribute. It simply tries to be a great Fevicol film. By most measures, it succeeds — which is, in the end, the most fitting send-off of all.
