Prasoon Joshi, chairperson - APAC, McCann Worldgroup, CEO and CCO, McCann India, (to be chairperson, Omnicom Advertising India) received the Advertising Agencies Association of India's (AAAI) Lifetime Achievement Award on 19 December 2025.

At the event hosted by the AAAI in Mumbai, industry friends paid tribute to Joshi.

Here are a few excerpts:

Nikhil Sharma, managing director, Perfetti Van Melle India

I met him for the first time 25 years ago. What stood out to me through all the iconic campaigns we have created together is that he actually followed up on sales for the products. He wanted to know whether the product grew.

Partha Sinha, senior advisor, McKinsey (worked with Joshi at McCann)

I first met him in New Delhi. A casual conversation led to a lifetime journey of friendship.

There were three reasons why I got fond of him. 

Firstly, he is an original thinker. It's difficult to remain original because that's the first thing that is usually sacrificed. We worked on the Nokia campaign together, and Joshi firmly believed that the future believes in human connections. So he wrote a radio spot about a successful man and his missing relationship with his mother. That spot was turned into a film, and that was the turning point of cellphones in India. That campaign was called 'Zindagi ki raftaar mein, rishton ko peeche naa chode'. That’s when Nokia became synonymous with India.

Secondly, he loved nuance. Creatives usually asked for the 'moti baat' (what was the brief). Joshi didn't. He was a worshipper of nuance. When he writes something, it stays. It's not a slogan or an interpretation. 

Thirdly, his ability to be comfortable with the idea of 'bizarre'. He has a childlike comfort in the bizarre. No phone call with him is boring, and that is the hallmark of a great creative mind.

Gayatri Yadav, group CMO, Reliance

I met him 15 years ago. I had the task of making Star Sports popular. We wanted to reimagine it and bring Hindi language into cricket. He made a campaign for it in a week. He sang 'joh baat hindi mein hain, woh kisi aur mein nahi'. That showed his respect for the language. It was reimagining the world of programming in Hindi. There’s also a deep respect for the consumer, viewer and listener. I was told there’s no one bigger than a poet, and that was compressed into a difficult form of art.

After the Hindi campaign for cricket, we wanted to make a campaign for women's cricket in 2012. No one thought of it as a serious sport. We had to address barriers.  The campaign we launched together was about a stat - we asked people about it on the streets and showed how it belonged to women. That's when the growth of women's cricket started in India.

While working on the campaign for Satyamev Jayate (a show hosted by Aamir Khan), we wanted a song to invoke and wake up India. It was a love song to the nation and was so personal and intimate. It was powerful and ageless. He’s always believed in creativity. One cannot be a great artist if one is not a good human being. It’s a premature award because picture abhi baaki hai!

Prahlad Kakkar, founder and director, Genesis Film Production

It's such an honour to be here for him because he’s always been there for me. I haven’t worked with him too much but have had him as a friend and support. We have done everything under the sun other than work. We have cooked meals and bonded over dinners. We have discussed life.

And while he may not admit it, all the poems he has written from the heart were meant for Aparna (his wife). I have figured it out because there’s a consistency.

What he brought to the advertising industry was creating a cultural route that dreamt in English. We reduced vernacular and Hindustani to translation. He dreams in two languages - English and Hindi, with the latter being the main. Before Prasoon and Piyush (Pandey) joined advertising, English was considered to be up market, and Hindi was downmarket. A lot of MNCs believed that. But he fought that battle and changed it around. Now we have 95% Hindi ads, and a lot of credit goes to Prasoon. The reason he could achieve that was that he charmed everyone with poetry. He understood people truly. Poetry cannot be faked. It has to be lived."

At the event, Ram Madhvani, founder, Equinox Films, also narrated a poem in honour of Joshi.