For years, disruption in advertising and marketing was framed as a looming shift. Today, it is operational reality. AI is compressing production cycles. Media fragmentation is reshaping reach. Performance metrics are tightening. Agency economics are under pressure. And marketing teams are being asked to deliver measurable business outcomes — not just communication outputs.
Ideas are no longer judged in isolation. They are tested in dashboards, optimised in real time and evaluated against revenue contribution. Attribution models are more precise. Budgets are more closely scrutinised. The distance between marketing and the P&L has narrowed significantly.
As a result, marketing can no longer function as a siloed communications discipline. It sits at the intersection of brand, data, technology, media and growth. The question is no longer brand versus performance, or traditional versus digital. It is about integration — and about accountability.
This is the backdrop against which the Samudra Manthan A&M Report 2026 was conceived.
The report is built around a wide-ranging 100-minute conversation on the MatheMedia podcast between Dr Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of BW Businessworld and Founder of Exchange4Media, and Shripad Kulkarni, a seasoned industry observer and media thinker. The discussion was later distilled into the India A&M Report 2026 — a structured reflection on how India’s advertising and marketing ecosystem is being reshaped across clients, agencies and media platforms.
Dr Annurag Batra has spent over two decades tracking the evolution of India’s media and marketing landscape — from the rise of private television and print expansion to digital disruption and platform dominance. Through Exchange4Media and BW Businessworld, he has had a ringside view of leadership transitions, agency restructures, media reinventions and the shifting mandate of the CMO. In this conversation, he argues that marketing’s core responsibility has quietly but decisively moved closer to growth ownership.
Shripad Kulkarni, as interviewer and interlocutor, steers the discussion beyond surface disruption. His questions probe structural shifts — agency economics, measurement failures, CMO tenure pressures, the rise of specialist firms, and the long tail of SME advertisers. The dialogue moves from macro industry churn to specific operational implications, turning a broad metaphor into a grounded industry diagnosis.
The India A&M Report 2026 uses the metaphor of Samudra Manthan — the great churning — to describe the current phase of the ecosystem. Technology, content, platforms, agencies and leadership mandates are all being reshaped simultaneously. In this churn, inefficiencies are being exposed, business models are being questioned, and accountability is being redistributed. What emerges, according to the report, is a clearer mandate: marketing must not only influence growth — it must own it.
It is in that context that the conversation unfolds.
The Age of Samudra Manthan
Dr Annurag Batra on Growth, Media Stacks, Agency Disruption — and Why Marketing Now Owns the Outcome
The Indian advertising and marketing ecosystem is not merely evolving — it is churning. Technology, content, media, agencies, platforms and leadership mandates are converging at once. The metaphor Dr Annurag Batra returns to repeatedly is that of Samudra Manthan — the churning of the ocean, where both poison and nectar emerge. What follows is drawn directly from that exchange, preserving the voice and cadence of the conversation itself.
Marketing Is Standing on New Ground
Shripad Kulkarni: How do you see the huge multi-faceted disruption in Advertising & Marketing we are facing right now?
Dr Annurag Batra: Over the last two decades, we’ve often spoken about the convergence of Silicon Valley (technology), Madison Avenue (advertising), and Hollywood (entertainment).
That convergence has now truly and deeply happened over the last three to four years, fundamentally changing the industry.
Broadly, there are three parts within our ecosystem, though these distinctions are already blurring. The first is the client side — the marketing ecosystem, the CMO world. The second is the agency ecosystem: media agencies, creative agencies, and multiple specialist agencies such as PR, performance marketing, experiential, programmatic, and CX. The third is the media platforms. All three are changing at the same time, creating disruption across the entire value chain.
Because of this, staying ahead requires first understanding what is happening across these three ends. To use an analogy, Samudra Manthan hota hai – usme se vish bhi nikalta hai aur amrit bhi. I believe the vish (poison) has already come out, and the amrit is now emerging. This churning is very much underway, making it a fascinating time.
Every phase of change brings challenges, often as opportunities in disguise. The reality is that we don’t know the future, so the only sensible approach is to return to strong fundamentals and get the basics right.
The churn begins with convergence. But it quickly moves into media.
Media Is Not a Choice. It’s a Stack.
Shripad: How do you see this Samudra Manthan affecting media companies?
Dr Batra: Media companies are not in the business of newspapers, websites, television. They are in the business of brands and audiences. So we are in the business of content and brand.
Whether it’s a ZTV or a ZEE TV, it’s repurposing. Now the consumption may happen through an over-the-top platform. YouTube is the biggest.
But connected TVs are a reality, YouTube is a reality, the influencer ecosystem is reality. So linear TV is being chipped at. You may not be a teenager, but we are on our screens getting news for consumption. Online is big. People are watching news channels on YouTube.
Linear TV is being chipped at. It has to keep pace. It has to reinvent. The pricing may be reinvented. But it is still very big in India as of today. Five years from now, I don’t know. But today it is.
People talk about newspapers being dead. India is different. Maybe in 5–10 years we may reach there. Dainik Bhaskar has done `300 crores plus profit. Look at Times of India. Look at HT. Ananda Vikatan. They are all building digital businesses. Look at the advertising volume, share of advertising in newspapers.
Experiential media is growing. Look at the economy around gigs, music concerts, record numbers attending, it’s spill off on the economy. We’re going to malls. While we like to get things through quick commerce platforms, the experience of shopping is still there.
So clearly mainstream media, at least in India, has some more years to be in its prime. But every medium has its unique quality and advertisers come to it for that. The viewers or readers come for it.
If media is fragmenting, agencies are under pressure.
More Agencies. Less Accountability.
Shripad: How is the Samudra Manthan manifesting among agencies?
Dr Batra: WPP has seen a change in guard, and MasterCard clearly articulated that WPP won the business because of its AI and technology capabilities. Publicis is growing taller and stronger, having made sustained acquisitions over the last decade across tech and services, and successfully integrating them into its offering.
Dentsu, a giant in Japan with a very strong balance sheet, has been evaluating the hiving off of its international operations. Martin Sorrell has also faced headwinds — his S4 Group did not have its best couple of years.
At the same time, the economics of creativity and media services are changing dramatically. Earlier, a half-million-dollar or million-dollar ad was common. Today, with AI tools, similar work can be done in 20–30 lakhs, and in some cases even as low as 10 lakhs.
Creative production is becoming far more cost efficient, time-efficient, and resource-efficient.
Media fees are also under pressure, sub 3%.
Then there are the Big Four and specialist marketing consulting firms, who are increasingly taking away consulting dollars. In fact, the Big Four today have more marketing and marketing-consulting assignments than many traditional agencies.
At the high end, agencies are competing with consultants; at the lower end, ex-agency talent-led agencies are emerging, operating at half the fees. Add to this a wave of young specialist agencies, and the big conglomerates are now facing what I call the Nokia problem in advertising.
The pressure shifts next to the CMO.
Growth Has Quietly Become Marketing’s Job
Shripad: How do you see the role of the CMO in these turbulent times?
Dr Batra: Marketing is not just about advertising and communication; those are only tools.
Marketing is not even about marketing itself — it is fundamentally about growth.
In that sense, the CMO is really the Chief Growth Officer.
As everything becomes more quantifiable, there are more opportunities for CMOs, but also far greater expectations. There is constant pressure to deliver more bang for the buck and drive growth and numbers.
The ecosystem has become highly fragmented, with multiple partners, vendors, and specialists. We live in an era of super-specialisation, and that reality has to be managed.
Teams are expanding, yet CMO tenures are shrinking. A decade ago, tenure was 60–72 months; seven or eight years ago, it dropped to 36–42 months, and today it is closer to 32 months. While change has its value, continuity also delivers rewards — and continuity with refreshment is often the most powerful combination.
Growth comes from three key areas. First, strong brand building coupled with performance. Second, deep consumer insights leading to product innovation and expansion. Third, acting as a true partner in digital transformation.
Yet despite this influence, very few CMOs become CEOs — less than 5%, closer to 3%. I would like to see many more CMOs move into CEO roles, and that will happen only when they deliver consistently on the growth mandate.
The next fracture point: measurement.
We Have Data. Not Necessarily the Truth.
Shripad: Media measurement has clearly failed the industry. What’s your take?
Dr Batra: I honestly think we don’t really want a good measurement system. There are too many vested interests.
Broadcasters want a system that suits them. Print has seen years of stalemate. Digital is a completely different and massive monster.
What we end up creating is a system that is acceptable to everyone, rather than one that is actually right.
Broadcasters fund the system, so naturally they want outcomes that work in their favour. That, in itself, is a flawed approach.
What the industry truly needs is credibility, integrity, domain expertise, and technology — but above all, the intent to allow an honest system to exist, even if it doesn’t benefit every player in the short term.
The solution, in my view, lies with advertisers — the real stakeholders. If advertisers allow an independent third party to run measurement, acting only as custodians and keeping agencies and broadcasters out of the process, a far more credible system can emerge.
If the intent is right, something good will come out of it.
Growth, however, is expanding at the base.
The Long Tail Is Now the Growth Engine
Shripad: How do you see the advertising market panning out?
Dr Batra: India is not an either-or country, it’s an AND country.
There are the big clients like the Levers, the Marutis. And there are clients who spend 3 crores, 5 crores and they may grow to spend 100 crores.
Every year there are 30 to 60 new brands being launched with some differentiation. This long tail of SME advertisers will move up.
I’m sure out of the D2C brands every year there’ll be 100–200 brands that will contribute significantly to advertising. Consumption is growing and the ambition of the Indian entrepreneur is growing.
The government has also been a big enabler. When the government decided to give a fillip to the drone sector and said we’ll buy a billion dollars of drones, it suddenly created an industry.
The Prime Minister always says we have to own brands. The environment is supportive.
The agency model must now evolve structurally.
Old Marketing Models Won’t Survive AI
Shripad Kulkarni: How do you see the agency of the future?
Dr Batra: I think the model of the future will be the ability to synthesise and converge all specialist services through one team that truly understands the client. At the end of the day, the ad agency is a consultant. It is an advisor on growth and an enabler of digital transformation.
Everything is about business growth. It is about sales and brand building. There was once a full-service model. Then came the specialist model. Now we are returning to a structure where one agency owner or ecosystem brings all services under one umbrella, even though they continue to operate separately.
It ultimately comes down to top consulting-class talent. An orchestrator who uses various specialists as and when required, sometimes outsourcing them. Media companies, too, must rethink scale.
Media Networks Must Deliver Brand Growth
Shripad: How do you visualise the media conglomerate of the future?
Dr Batra: The future is about specialized content in every domain and we have to rethink our business model.
The cost structures have to change. There has to be better managerial talent in media companies.
I wrote 15–18 years back that the media company of the future is one that owns retail, owns a telco and retains the media company. That’s what Mr Ambani is building.
Whenever there is disruption or change of guard at a media company, it’s a time for reinvention.
Media companies must think ecosystem, not just channel.
Talent becomes the structural risk.
Talent Gap? Automate Execution.
Shripad Kulkarni: What shifts do you see in talent?
Dr Batra: Talent prefers to go to Meta, Google, tech platforms.
The solution is doing away with non-core things in an agency. Billing is non-core. You need to collapse administrative parts of buying into a third party. Agencies, media, clients spend 21% cost between them. If that becomes 10%, you redeploy that cost in quality of people. One of the things that will become big is GCCs. Holding companies will build capability centres in India solving for global clients. The services that GCCs provide from India will become a big business.
Don’t Just Hunt. Attract.
Shripad: Is performance killing brand building?
Dr Batra: The nature of advertising is changing. When you put out an ad, you can now track whether it is leading to sales because of e-commerce. Platforms have an advantage. Having said that, this does not necessarily lead to brand building. The role of brand building is more crucial today than ever. In a D2C world, you keep getting growth as long as you keep spending. How do you sustain growth if you do not spend? That happens when you have a strong brand. Brand building and performance have to go hand in hand. Both have a role. It is not either or. Most smart founders know that you earn premiums by building a brand, both in value to consumers and when you go to the stock market.
