Thirty years of watching Indian advertising from the inside out gives you a certain kind of clarity. Dr Annurag Batra, chairman and editor-in-chief, BW Businessworld and founder, exchange4media, has earned that clarity as a journalist, entrepreneur, and industry participant who has seen every cycle this business has thrown at him. At Goa Fest, in conversation with Dheeraj Sinha, CEO, McCann India, he brought that perspective to a question the industry keeps dancing around: why does advertising keep talking itself down?
The session, titled The Resets That Shaped Indian Advertising, crackled with the kind of candour that trade events rarely produce. At the heart of it was a provocative diagnosis: Indian advertising has a narrative problem—and the industry has nobody to blame but itself.
When Sinha pressed Batra on why the trade media landscape feels so relentlessly gloomy—“Every morning I wake up, and I see trade media, I am scared. Now what bad will they write about us?”—Batra didn’t deflect. He turned the mirror squarely on the industry’s own leaders. Without taking a name, he said, “If the CEO of the largest advertising agency goes to Cannes and says our industry is going to the docks, then what will media people print?” His point was pointed and uncomfortable: negative headlines aren’t manufactured—they’re handed over. “As leaders, we have to bring out the positive. We have failed at that.”
Asked to name three things that the industry must urgently change, Batra was characteristically direct. First, less negative self-talk, as professionals and as an industry. Second, the right role models. And third, invoking the Hindu trinity—a Shiva-like willingness to destroy outdated business models. “You have to do greater destruction of the business models,” he said. The old structures of creative services, bloated shoot budgets, and top-heavy agencies are relics. The clients know it. It’s time agencies caught up.
The tough talk, however, masks a deeper conviction. The industry stands at ₹1,75,000 crores today and will cross ₹2 lakh crores next year. “Advertising is growing. More and more businesses and brands are using advertising to build their brands and businesses,” he said. The agency of the future, in his telling, is a convergence play—Silicon Valley’s technology, Madison Avenue’s advertising craft, and Hollywood’s storytelling, all delivered to clients under one roof. Publicis, he noted, has already gotten that memo with its $3.9 billion agentic AI acquisition.
His closing message was equal parts challenge and conviction. He said, “Advertising agencies in India will survive. They will thrive. The future of the industry is bright. It may not be the same shape, but it is bright.”
In an industry prone to self-doubt, Batra’s thirty-year view cuts through the noise—and lands firmly on the side of optimism.
