What the Father of Indian advertising, Alyque Padamsee taught leaders of today

Theatre develops your imagination, while advertising develops your analytical powers. This was a belief Indian theatre personality and advertising veteran Alyque Padamsee held upon as he donned the costume for a dress rehearsal as a theatre artist and the hat of the CEO at one of the largest advertising agencies in India, Lintas Bombay (now known as MullenLowe Lintas Group). 

Known as the Father of Indian Advertising, Padamsee spent most of his adult life shaping Lintas’ growth trajectory, and simultaneously produced and directed over fifty full-length plays for one of the most active theatre groups in India. 

While theatre was his passion, advertising paid the big bucks that he needed to sustain himself. In fact, many theatre artists entered and dominated the ad scenes at that time. For the advertising legend, it felt as if the hungry art seeped into the plush advertising business. Theatre was the heart to his existence but so was advertising and he excelled in both.

“Before you could say ‘To be or not to be’, it was very much, to be in theatre was to be in advertising,” said Alyque Padamsee in his book ‘A Double Life’. And what an interesting double life it was. 

Padamsee has been credited for creating over 100 ads, bringing iconic campaigns to life such as the Liril girl, Surf Excel’s Lalitaji, Hamara Bajaj, Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish, MRF Tyres’ Muscle Man, Kamasutra Condoms ad and more. In the theatre world, he was distinguished both as an actor and director with productions including Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Man of La Mancha, A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of A Salesman and more. He is also known for playing the role of Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi.

“Many people are amazed that I have two full-time careers, one in theatre and one in advertising when they can barely handle one. ‘How did you manage it?’ they ask. ‘Is there any connection between the two professions?’” Padamsee was questioned often, according to his book.

How Pops found his courage of conviction

One of the answers to this would be his time management skills and a repertoire of good excuses. Padamsee learnt time management after struggling to juggle his two interests - cricket and theatre. When he was in St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, he was the pace bowler for his class, and at the same time, he had an acting role in Indian theatre director Ebrahim Alkazi’s play Richard III. While he had planned his schedule to make time for both, there came a moment when the timings for the two clashed. As the cricket match dragged on, he anxiously watched the clock, knowing he was needed on stage. After the game, he sprinted to the theatre, only to arrive too late. His absence forced someone else to read his part, and Alkazi, furious, kicked him out of the play. The incident taught him the vital lesson of mastering time management and always having a backup plan.

His ability to plan things prior was a skill that not only helped shape the culture at Lintas but also left a lasting impact on the advertising industry. Alyque Padamsee's influence extended beyond campaigns, as he mentored and inspired many of today's leaders, imparting his wisdom and setting a benchmark for creativity in the field.

When KV Sridhar (Pops), Global Chief Creative Officer, Nihilent Limited & Hypercollective received the offer to join Lintas with his friend KS Chakravarthy (Chax) in 1991, they met Alyque Padamsee and immediately noticed his larger-than-life personality. 

The duo would always work together and Pops fondly remembers how the ex-Lintas chief asked the duo if they wanted to join on a joint salary or separate ones. His theatrical personality, however, was contained by sheer discipline and the value of time. 

“Alyque’s approach stood out during an era when advertising was associated with debauchery and creative tantrums. He believed in discipline amidst the madness. He respected opportunity and time, whether it was his own time or that of others. Alyque instilled professionalism and audacity.”

While Padamsee was known for his bold and unconventional ways, like holding meetings on a treadmill or counting fish in a large tank, he created a culture at Lintas that emphasised equity, action, quality, and time management. 

In the years that Pops had the opportunity to work with Padamsee, he considered him to be one of his gurus. 

“The personal lessons I’ve learned from him include having the courage of conviction, discipline, and the importance of respecting opportunities. Despite his maverick and audacious behaviour, he valued time immensely. If you didn’t respect your time, he made it clear that no one else would.”

Though he might have come across as harsh, his time management skills were remarkable, according to Pops and these are valuable lessons anyone can learn from.

Kiran Khalap’s eye for perfection

Padamsee also imbibed his theatre-learnt discipline in every detail of advertising. For Kiran Khalap, Co-founder & MD, chlorophyll brand & communications consultancy, it was Padamsee’s thirst for perfection in execution that stayed with him. 

“The most valuable lesson I learnt from Alyque was execution. Like they say, “All strategy is execution.” Alyque came from a strong theatre background: in theatre, there are no replays! You have to rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, till the delivery is flawless,” shares Khalap.

When Khalap joined Lintas in 1983, the agency was small, so Padamsee would ‘test’ each creative person by interacting with them personally on mainstream campaigns or social service campaigns. 

Khalap had the opportunity to work with him on multiple social service campaigns, including a film for Spastics Society of India with Smita Patil and a category-busting campaign for ART for CRY along with the B&W photographer Swapan Parekh. Alyque’s love for social causes and the opportunities provided to Khalap were what led him to win the first Ashok Jain Award for Public Service Advertising in 1984. 

Crafting and presenting a campaign requires skill and execution plays an important role. Padamsee’s theatre background came into play during campaign pitches. He conducted himself in advertising pitches the way he would on a theatre stage. There was a discipline with which he carried himself. 

For instance, when Rajeev Gandhi became the Prime Minister, there was a surge of new thinking. The Government was looking at creating a campaign to attract investment. Lintas was in the race to create that campaign. 

Padamsee sent Khalap and a senior art director to Delhi, where they arrived late at night. Despite the hour, they presented four campaigns to him, and Padamsee loved every single one of them. 

“It was 2 am in the morning. Then he said, “Ok, please leave now. I have to rehearse”. He rehearsed the presentation in front of the mirror for an hour!”

In another instance, Alyque Padamsee captivated the AdAsia Conference in Bangkok with an innovative presentation on the iconic Surf campaign featuring Lalitaji in 1986. His quest for perfection led him to rehearse a scene, where water was flung at him as if from the screen, over 20 times until late at night. This go-getter attitude was what shaped the future of Lintas. 

In his book, ‘A Double Life’, Padamsee stated, “A lot of the success we enjoyed at Lintas was thanks to the professional theatre attitude we carried over into advertising. Everything was preplanned. Whether it was a pre-production meeting for a film or rehearsing before a client presentation.” 

Opening night is a cruel time to make mistakes. Similarly, a client presentation is not an opportune moment to realise that the lettering on your slides is so small that the client can’t read what’s on them.

While Padamsee would don his creative hat during presentations, it would become his ‘pitch theatre’. “But it was about idea selling. He used to mount a pitch to sell an idea, not to sell a business,” as per Pops. 

His focus was always on presenting a great idea, rather than just securing the business, emphasising the power of creativity in the pitch process.

Padamsee, in his book, mentioned “This ability to put yourself, not so much in the shoes, but rather in the mind and heart of the consumer, is the hallmark of a great advertising strategist.”

The White Room at Josy Paul’s office

He would encourage his peers to push their creative abilities as well. In the early nineties, Josy Paul, Chairperson & Chief Creative Officer at BBDO India and his art partner Neville D’Souza got an offer from Alyque Padamsee to work at Lintas. 

Paul recalls, “We had to travel from city to city every other week and come up with new ideas for brands. Sometimes we had to compete with the local creative folks in Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai and Bangalore. We learnt to navigate by focussing on the work. It was Alyque’s way of pushing the creative output.”

The duo were given the freedom to question, provoke and challenge everything. It was this creative freedom that allowed them a chance to launch brands like Tanishq, Timex, Fastrack, MasterCard and Motorola.

At BBDO India, Josy Paul has imbibed lessons learnt from Padamsee. At the agency, a unique room called the White Room was inspired by Alyque Padamsee and Kersy Katrak's innovation at Lintas. This room, completely white, from the walls and carpet to the furnishings and low-hanging lamp shades, creates a serene, Zen-like atmosphere for brainstorming sessions. Instead of traditional furniture, low white mattresses are used, encouraging a more relaxed and open environment. Teams enter with a client’s brief and engage in free-flowing discussions without the constraints of hierarchy or judgement.

“But unlike other meeting rooms, in the White Room, you can’t say ‘no’. All ideas are welcome. No idea is wrong. If, for some reason, one of the team members says ‘no’ to an idea, he or she has to give 3 reasons why it is a great idea. In the White Room, you can’t kill an idea. There is no judgement. Which is why it is white. That’s Zeigarnik! That’s Alyque.”

- Josy Paul

This legacy of openness and creative freedom is a lasting tribute to Padamsee's leadership, and it remains alive at BBDO India today.

Encouraging Sumit Roy’s dream of growing people who grow brands

To make a creative person successful, there has to be openness for growth. Alyque Padamsee was always focused on growth and profitability. But he helped his peers realise that that happens organically when you have groomed top talent. Sumit Roy, Founder Director, Univbrands, used to be the Resource Planning Manager at Lintas India from 1987 to 1991. 

However, this role did not exist back then. In early 1987, Alyque Padamsee heard that Roy wanted to become a 'Resource Planning Manager’ since he was determined to pursue something he was more passionate about - growing people who grow brands. While many misunderstood the role, thinking he wanted to become a training manager, Padamsee didn’t. 

Roy was called to give an interview at Padamsee's residence, ‘Christmas Eve’ at Breach Candy. The ad maestro was known for holding meetings at his home. 

Roy got his attention by quoting Leo Burnett about the importance of an agency's people, only changing the word 'assets' to 'resources'. The quote said, "The best resources an advertising agency has are its people. Every evening, they take the elevator home." Roy wanted a career that made those 'resources' far more productive. 

This got Padamsee’s attention. At the time, HTA (JWT, now VML) was almost Rs 100 crores in billing, while Lintas was Rs 25 crores. His goal was to make Lintas as large as HTA in four years but with half the number of people. Roy ended up crafting an insight-mining process that went on to become the basis of ‘The Aha Tree’ at Roy’s current company.

All of this is because Padamsee asked him a question he had no answer to. Roy shares, “Getting Alyque Padamsee to accept me in a job I had invented (Resource Planning) was a dream come true. Ever the practical person, AP gave me a brief that helped us create a training program for Lintas that could be best described as "Learn-by-Doing". There were hardly any 'off-site' workshops or 'downtime' involved in the 'people development' programs Alyque got me to put together.”

Padamsee’s belief that people learn best when they learn by doing, drives Roy today. 

Roy mentions, “He inspired me to make 'growing people who grow brands' a career. Not that financial targets were missing. He also showed me how to make sure that the talent you groom wants to stay in the organisation once you have made them stars.”

The Zeigarnik effect on leaders of today

A creative person himself, Padamsee wanted to encourage other creatives to grow by doing, being fearless, determined, audacious, respectful, multi-tasker, disciplined, Zeigarnik, theatrical, thorough and attentive. 

But the biggest quality of all was his empathetic nature. Kiran Khalap comments, “Despite being larger-than-life, he was obsessed with equality. Several of my meetings were at his house on Christmas Eve in Breach Candy, probably the first instance of WFH! But I was always treated like a family member.”

During one of his meetings, however, he was late. It was Padamsee who noticed the reason - Khalap had an accident on his scooter on the way to work, tearing his jacket in the process. 

“After the meeting, he asked me to show the wound and told me how to deal with it. Meeting be damned.”

Many of the big names in advertising, in India and worldwide, were born under Padamsee’s leadership. The followers went on to lead large agencies. Some started their own, as per Josy Paul. 

“They, in turn, continue to inspire more leaders. It’s the nuclear fission of leadership. And at the starting point stands Alyque, the source of this contagious creative force.”

Padamsee’s contributions to both the advertising industry and theatre drew many towards him, each wishing they could emulate even a tiny part of him.

Pops believes, “I feel like I'm only 20% of what he was, and I wish I could be 100%. He was incredibly generous in passing on the qualities an advertising professional should possess, and we try to pass on at least 10% or 20% of what we’ve learned to the next generation.” 

That's really all a guru or teacher ever asks, to pass on knowledge and wisdom.

The father of Indian Advertising may have passed, but he has left many learnings that ad professionals can emulate even today.

Alyque Padamsee’s mentees, now leading different departments across agencies, have each left a mark on the industry in their own unique ways. Yet, his mentees agree on one thing - there is no leader quite like him today.