As we begin the New Year, we spoke to industry leaders to reflect on the shifts that shaped 2025 and the forces expected to define 2026. For Himanshu Saxena, Managing Director – BBH India and President (North & East) – Saatchi & Saatchi India, Propagate India, 2025 marked a clear shift from influence-led optics to impact-driven accountability.
Sharing his view on the year gone by, Saxena notes how marketing began responding to a more fragmented, culturally grounded India.
“In 2025, the era of ‘broad-stroke’ marketing gave way to a more fragmented and honest reality. The industry moved from the vanity of ‘influence’ to the accountability of ‘impact’, using AI not to amplify noise but to filter out bot-led reach and inflated metrics. As brands leaned into the vernacular realities of Tier 2 and Tier 3 India, cultural relevance began to outweigh metropolitan homogeneity. 2025 marked the year marketing stopped performing and started listening.”
Looking ahead, Saxena believes this listening mindset will shape how creativity evolves in 2026, as Indian advertising moves away from a single national narrative towards more localised expressions.
“The New Indian Imagination: From Mass Dreams to the ‘Gully’
For decades, Indian marketing relied on a singular, metro-centric narrative. By 2026, that pedestal is visibly eroding. The Indian consumer is moving away from a borrowed ‘national’ identity toward more intimate, local expressions shaped by language, context, and lived experience.”
This shift, he says, is evident in the growing importance of hyper-local culture and creators.
“The Growing Sovereignty of the Pin Code: We are witnessing a decisive shift away from metro-led aspiration. Tier 2 and Tier 3 India no longer accept second-hand cultural cues. This vernacular shift is not cosmetic—it is a demand for cultural dignity and relevance. Hyper-local creators are evolving from mere distribution channels into curators of trust. The industry is moving from a ‘standardised India’ to a ‘deep India’, where local idiom often matters more than global symbolism. To that effect, the powerful Buz.ai platform at Publicis Groupe will be a powerful solution for hyper localisation for our clients.”
Technology, too, is evolving alongside this cultural shift, with AI becoming more attuned to creative context.
“Gen AI: Emergence of the Digital ‘Karigar’: AI is undergoing a Ghar-Wapsi i.e. entering a more grounded phase. From being positioned as a cold efficiency tool, it is evolving into a culturally aware creative companion. This shift allows Indian stories to be told with both nuance and scale. Cultural calibration will be the real differentiator, enabling local narratives to match the production value of global campaigns. Publicis Groupe is already gearing up for this moment through deep GenAI and agentic AI integrations across everyday workflows.”
In a fragmented media environment, Saxena also sees renewed potential in the living room screen.
“The Big Screen’s Second Act: Connected TV is the new communal hearth. It combines the emotional impact of traditional television with the precision of digital targeting. This ‘phygital’ advantage allows brands to operate at two levels simultaneously—as a mass spectacle and a personalised conversation. In a fragmented media environment, CTV offers a rare opportunity to rebuild shared attention without sacrificing relevance.”
(As told to Yash Bhatia)
