Dear Category Leader,
Last week, Indian advertising lost its most distinctive voice.
Piyush Pandey, the man who gave this industry its accent — who moved Indian advertising away from borrowed Western tonality and grounded it in our culture, our humour, and our emotional truth — passed away at 70.
And if you’re reading this from a corner office in a real estate firm, you might wonder why an agency (one known today for its AI-driven creative conversion engine, LOOP) is writing to you about an advertising legend’s passing.
Here’s why:
Real estate is the only category that never learned from Piyush Pandey.
We want to know:
Which Indian real estate brand makes advertising that moved you?
Which campaign made you feel something?
Which one told the truth?
Send it to us. Reply with the link. Share the work.
If we’re going to honour Piyush’s legacy, let’s start by recognising the very few who lived up to it.
And if that list is short…
Well, that’s the conversation the category needs to have.
Indian real estate is booming.
By 2025, the sector will contribute nearly 13% to India’s GDP.
By 2030, it will be worth ₹100 lakh crore.
Money is flowing. Towers are rising. The category has never been stronger.
But the advertising?
It’s never been weaker.
Walk through any Indian city. Look at the hoardings. Scroll through the ads.
What do you see?
- “Premium 2/3 BHK”
- “World-Class Amenities”
- “Prime Location”
- “Limited Offer”
- “Possession Soon”
It’s not advertising.
It’s a property brochure with a phone number.
Now ask yourself:
When was the last time a real estate ad made you feel something?
A story?
A moment?
A truth about Indian family life?
A cultural insight?
Anything that wasn’t a feature list?
If you’re honest, the answer is:
Almost never.
Piyush Pandey’s genius was unbelievably simple:
The best advertising is not written in conference rooms — it’s overheard in life.
His work wasn’t about products.
It was about people.
- Fevicol’s “Todo Nahi, Jodo” wasn’t about adhesive strength.
- Cadbury’s “Kuch Khaas Hai” wasn’t about cocoa percentage.
- Asian Paints’ “Har Ghar Kuch Kehta Hai” wasn’t about durability.
They were about human truth.
Relationships. Rituals. Transformation. Memory.
And yet, the category that sells the single most emotional purchase in an Indian family’s life —
the backdrop for every birthday, every Diwali, every late-night fight and every morning tea —
advertises itself like it’s selling plywood sheets.
A behavioural scientist would tell you (and Piyush knew instinctively):
1. Loss Aversion > Features
People aren’t buying space.
They’re buying fear of the wrong choice.
Fear of compromising their children’s childhood.
Fear of missing the life they imagine.
Where is that in your communication?
2. Social Proof > Amenities
People don’t want RCC details.
They want to know:
“Do people like me live here? And are they happy?”
Yet your ads show renders, not communities
3. The Peak-End Rule > Information Dump
People remember peak emotion, not bullet points.
Yet your entire journey is a form, a callback, a brochure PDF.
Where is the moment?
Developers have gone all-in on digital transformation:
- Influencer videos
- Drone walkthroughs
- VR tours
- Chatbots
- Big-budget performance campaigns
But it’s all tactic, no soul.
You’ve optimised the funnel.
But you’ve forgotten to give people a reason to enter it.
Real estate has become the category of obvious ideas.
- “Spacious homes” (as opposed to what?)
- “Near IT Corridor” (like the other 47?)
- “Vastu compliant” (baseline hygiene, not USP)
You are spending crores on media…
But zero on a distinctive idea.
And without an idea, the media is just noise at scale.
Your research tells you what every developer knows:
- Location
- Quality
- Amenities
- Timely Delivery
- Value
Congratulations.
You and your competitor have the same list.
But here’s the truth research never reveals:
People don’t buy homes.
They buy the future version of their life, they believe that home will enable.
The young couple buying 950 sq ft is buying confidence.
The executive buying a villa is buying validation.
The NRI is buying a connection.
Where are those truths in your ads?
What if you stopped talking about your project for a moment?
What if you talked about:
- The anxiety of house hunting with Indian parents
- The comedy of choosing between two identical sample flats
- The moment a house becomes a home
- The invisible architecture of everyday life
- The chaos of moving day
- The dreams families carry into a new address
What if you made people feel something before asking them to fill a form?
What if real estate created advertising people actually wanted to watch?
What if the category finally honoured the legacy Piyush left behind?
Here’s what we’re really asking:
Who in Indian real estate is making Piyush Pandey proud?
Which developer’s work will be remembered a decade from now?
Which campaign entered culture?
Which brand became shorthand for “a better life”, not “2BHK available”?
If they exist, they’re quiet.
And if they don’t… that’s exactly the problem.
You’re selling the most emotional purchase Indians ever make.
You have budgets other categories dream of.
And you’re advertising like toothpaste.
Meanwhile, a young couple in your city is choosing between four identical projects with four identical ads making four identical claims.
And they will choose based on… price.
Because you gave them nothing else to choose from.
“Streak helped us listen to the market and respond with positioning that hit the mark. Buland became a hit from day one.”
At Streak, this is exactly what we build in our 30-Day Growth + LTV Audit: rapid creative resets tied to market shifts, and retention loops that convert opportunistic buyers into loyal customers.