From Bollywood ballads to billion-dollar brand strategies, Prasoon Joshi—CEO & Chief Creative Officer of McCann Worldgroup India and Chairman of McCann Worldgroup Asia-Pacific—has spent two decades proving that the deepest truths about markets live not in data points, but in their cultural DNA.
Few creative minds have shaped both India’s cultural conscience and its commercial landscape as deeply as Prasoon Joshi. A Padma Award honouree and Cannes Lions jury president, he’s balanced parallel careers as CEO and CCO of McCann Worldgroup India, Chairman for Asia-Pacific, and one of Bollywood’s most influential lyricists and songwriters.
Joshi’s portfolio spans brands from Coca-Cola and Mastercard to Nestlé and Air India, as well as public work like the “Incredible India” campaign and initiatives on polio, malnutrition, and women’s empowerment. On screen, his credits include Taare Zameen Par (Like Stars on Earth), Rang De Basanti (Paint It Saffron), Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (Run Milkha Run), and Black.
At a time when brands scramble to decode cultural codes and algorithms attempt to parse human emotion, Joshi insists creativity begins “where data ends and daring begins.” In his debut conversation with Beyond the Boardroom, he explores the tensions at the core of modern commerce: authenticity versus scale, cultural depth versus digital speed, and the poetry of persuasion versus the demands of profit.
Looking back at your journey from poet to one of India’s most influential creative strategists, can you pinpoint the moment when you realised that the same language that moved hearts in your verses could also move markets and reshape commercial conversations?
The realisation came in stages, not any single epiphany. As a writer, words were my way of expressing myself and reaching people. But when I began working in the communication industry, I saw something subtler at work: ideas and words could move hearts and also impact decisions. A sentence written with craft and finesse could inspire trust, shift behaviour, and remain in people’s minds. Communication and advertising taught me that language could be layered and converge the emotional and the economic.
When you first entered the advertising world in the early 1990s, what fundamental disconnect did you observe between how the industry perceived consumers and how people actually lived, felt, and made decisions in their daily lives?
To begin with, I was amazed that along with my MBA qualifications, my many passions—writing poetry, music, and ideas—could find use in the field of advertising. It was also a time when the industry was increasingly having to become more broad-based in its approach, be it in terms of reach or the tools used. But there was a palpable disconnect. A sense of being somewhat removed from the general consumer. The consumers were seen at a distance—a “Geeta from Gorakhpur,” rather than an aunt, sister, friend, or mother. The “common man” was a phrase, part of a collective. As an industry, there was a need to bridge the gap and move away from a top-down approach, shifting from just using the language to understanding and respecting the psyche. As I’ve said many times, whether it’s ads, music, cinema, or any other creative commercial field, one cannot expect to have a share of the consumer’s wallet without respecting their share of voice.
Many of your breakthrough campaigns have carried a rhythm that felt closer to cultural conversation than conventional advertising. For instance, your work with Coca-Cola became part of everyday language in India in a way few ads had at the time. Was this a conscious attempt to break away from industry formula, or simply the natural voice of someone unwilling to be constrained by the grammar of commerce?
It was never about setting out to be a rebel. I simply came carrying a different tune. It was about being authentic. Of course, I respect the business and the complexities of the market. But I also felt attuned to the grammar of people—their lived experiences, colloquial phrases and metaphors, innate wisdom, exuberant expression, understanding, and empathy. There was no fighting any formula, per se, more about ensuring that my authentic voice was not flattened. It’s not about being right or wrong—we all have a unique vantage point. For example, take a flowing river. Someone standing on its banks might find the river rhythmic, peaceful, even meditative. Someone swimming in it might find it forceful, challenging, perhaps even life-threatening. Both perspectives are valid. Creativity is about recognising those different vantage points.
Campaigns like Thanda Matlab Thanda (Cold Means Cold), where I explored the nuances of smaller-town India, came from my lived experiences. Seeing farmers dunk mangoes in wells during summer to keep them cool translated into Coca-Cola being kept thanda in the same manner. If you know the subtext, it was about depicting rural and small-town India not from a condescending urban perspective, but from a rediscovery of self-confidence in authentic ways. The campaign exemplified a global brand leveraging local authenticity without diluting it. It was scalable because it was relevant and confidently presented in a local context.
Or take Incredible India!, where I explored how varied and unique parts of India remain with you even after you’ve left. It wasn’t about seeing or experiencing India; it was about India making that small but profound impact on your inner core.
You’ve become the person many global brands call when they want to authentically “crack India.” Examining the briefs that cross your desk, what are these brands truly seeking, mere translation, cultural validation, or something deeper like permission to belong in this market?
When you step into India, you recognise that things co-exist. Antiquity and modernity, belief and non-belief, hierarchy and equality, material noise and spiritual silence—they all function at once. Nothing ever dies; it is all cyclical. India is perhaps, the most layered cultural landscape in the world, and to be able to crack it is to first recognise that it resists reduction. One has to immerse truly and know that there will be parts that defy reach. I am comfortable with that, and with the fact that contradictions exist in full measure. There is continuity and change. Today’s India is about restless dreams. The youth of the larger India—the mini-metros, emerging cities, even villages, given the digital connectivity—are raring to go. They are and will shift markets.
So, translation alone is never enough, because language without cultural resonance is hollow. Belonging is the deeper chord. But here, belonging is not granted by campaigns alone; it’s earned through humility, listening, and entering the emotional fabric, customs, idioms, and humour. What has worked for me is that I am deeply culturally rooted but globally oriented in my outlook. I would say the approach is not about a market to be cracked but a layered cultural conversation to be immersed in. And the smartest global brands recognise that it is now about developing the ability to create in India.
After decades of helping such brands discover their local voice, how do you now define cultural authenticity? Is it about maintaining fidelity to heritage, or has it become more about the sophisticated skill of cultural reinvention?
Today, even in our super-connected world, cultures are at different life stages. Some are nascent, some developed, and others have ancient roots. As I said earlier, a nuanced understanding of both the global brand context and the local culture is crucial. It’s not about assuming that local culture is a constraint and people need to change, or that a global brand is a fixed tone cast in stone. It’s about the nuances. Only then can you figure out how your brand can resonate with the relevant part of culture. If we find the space for each market to amplify the global value in its own lexicon, symbols, and rituals, the global brand will grow organically, not as an imposition, but as a cultural co-creation.
The advertising landscape itself has undergone seismic shifts—from the era of memorable jingles and cinematic TVCs to today’s fragmented digital ecosystem of influencers and micro-moments. What tensions do you observe between the demands of craft and speed, between the pursuit of depth and the promises of data-driven precision?
In the age of shorter attention spans, endless choices, and multiple touchpoints, there is a fear of a fragmented narrative. As we now know, this is no longer about active performers and a passive audience. One needs to collaborate with the audience. It’s no longer a one-way street. While hyper-personalisation and moment-marketing are impressive, we need to be mindful that the consumer may not want us to cross the line of their comfort zone. Data, when used effectively, can provide reassurance and help maintain a coherent brand narrative. The key is: who is working on the central narrative, and how is that getting strengthened? It’s very well to say, “Let’s craft a tune and then, like jazz, let each platform improvise and build.” But let’s not forget that even in jazz there is, to some extent, a fixed sequence of chords. Even if the notes are new, one remains mindful of the harmonic foundation. Our multiple platforms and tech tools need to accentuate the brand voice and core message. Even in the tactical “here and now,” I try to be conscious of an overall brand image.
Frankly, for me, friction is not negative. The diversity of approaches and methods is what leads to transformative ideas.
Having inhabited the intersection of art and commerce for decades, do you believe advertising has surrendered some of its poetic soul in the relentless pursuit of clicks and performance metrics? How do you envision AI reshaping this creative landscape—for better or worse?
On the face of it, some may agree, but I don’t believe fundamentals are lost; they morph. Tools and data bring efficiency, but the opportunity is not to outguess the algorithm, it’s to steer it toward a vision. After all, AI is rooted in human-produced data: our words, images, histories, and decisions distilled. It feels transformative because it recombines the familiar with speed and polish.
What sets human creativity apart is the irrational leap, the instinctive break of pattern. Philip Larkin once said our best manuscripts are blank notebooks because they hold infinite potential. AI can fill pages in seconds; humans stare at blankness and then leap. That leap—illogical, instinctive, disobedient—is where creativity thrives. AI can refine what is known, but it cannot reach into the avyakt—the unexpressed, the unsaid. Creativity is not a tidy arrangement; it is rupture. Humans, uniquely, can disobey even their own logic. That disobedience is the heartbeat of imagination. AI sharpens rather than diminishes human creativity, and creativity will live wherever data ends and daring begins.
Clients often come to you wanting transformative work, but without the time, budget, or conviction that evolution really requires. How do you handle that gap between ambition and resources?
I have fundamental respect for both the consumer and the client’s resources, so my focus remains intact regardless of the scale of the project. Sometimes, despite all the time, budget, and belief, things still don’t have the impact. And often, a brief full of constraints transcends, and great work gets produced. There are so many dynamic forces at play that the result is never fully in our hands. Only the work is—and that I don’t compromise on.
Today’s marketing industry seems utterly obsessed with instant metrics and quarterly performance spikes. As someone whose work operates in the realm of symbols, poetry, and the slow-moving currents of culture, how do you reconcile this fundamental clash between the demands of depth and the pressures of immediacy?
It’s a very relevant question. You can see how short-term goals are reflected in campaigns. Capital markets and balance sheets demand quarterly results, but culture moves in decades. The bigger brands understand that short-term actions must ladder into long-term meaning. It’s not about choosing between impact and profit; it’s about understanding that cultural equity and social impact, once built, compound faster than media spends. Some brands are legacy creators. Others today aren’t even thinking medium-term; they want something new and fresh, even if it’s only for a short burst. They require intensity, not necessarily longevity. One has to be nimble enough to do justice to either kind.
Finally, your work spans cinema, commerce, and national campaigns. When you look across that landscape, how do you measure success—through awards, cultural impact, or the creative vocabulary you leave behind?
Success, in the conventional sense of accolades, has never excited me. For me, it’s about whether your work connects. Whether your ideas and thoughts resonate. And to realise that meaning was never something you created, it was something you released. As I often say: I am not electricity; I am just the wire through which the electricity of thought and ideas flows. I just want to be a worthy medium and retain my authentic voice to keep honing my craft.