It’s like losing family: Ad veterans on the end of DDB, FCB and MullenLowe

There was a time when mentioning you worked at Lintas could melt the toughest landlord in Mumbai. Young professionals travelled from across the country, fresh out of college or MBA programs, hoping for a chance to join what was widely considered the best agency in India.

Lintas wasn't just creatively strong. It was exceptional as a full agency, back when media and creative operated as one unified force. The calibre of talent it produced led the alumni to run agencies and businesses across India and globally. Alyque Padamsee saw brands as pop culture, transforming how Indian advertising approached consumer connection. His vision, combined with leaders like Prem Mehta who expanded the agency into specialised units under the Integrated Marketing Action Group, created what many describe as a continuation of campus life, a family-like culture that only those who experienced it truly understand.

On December 1, 2025, Omnicom finalised its $13.5 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group, becoming the world's largest advertising holding company. The restructure included Omnicom retiring the iconic names DDB, FCB, and MullenLowe. DDB and MullenLowe will be absorbed by TBWA, and FCB will merge into BBDO. This move will result in over 4,000 global job cuts, aiming for $750 million in annual cost savings.

For India, where these agencies built some of their deepest roots and strongest franchises over nearly eight decades, the announcement landed with the weight of personal loss.

These agencies' campaigns became integral to India's social fabric. Iconic examples include Lintas' Liril girl, Surf's Lalitaji, Mudra's "I love you Rasna" and "God's Own Country" (Kerala tourism), and FCB Ulka's "Jab ghar ki raunak badhani ho" (Nerolac) and "Zindagi ke saath bhi, zindagi ke baad bhi" (LIC). These lines are now cultural touchstones.

When the masters of brand-building couldn’t save their own brands

Ashish Bhasin, Founder, The Bhasin Consulting Group and former CEO Asia Pacific, Dentsu, spent 20 years at Lintas, rising from management trainee to running multiple businesses and to him, “its disappearance feels almost like a personal loss." He finds the current situation to be bitterly ironic. 

"While we teach the world how to build brands, we're terrible at managing our own," Bhasin says. "In the 20 years I spent at Lintas, it was rebranded six or seven times. Lintas, Lowe Lintas, Ammirati Puris Lintas, Mullen Lintas, and several combinations in between. Lintas is just one example. JWT was another iconic brand that evolved into Wunderman Thompson and is now VML. These are brands that took decades, even a century, to build, yet they were discarded almost overnight in the name of global brand architecture. It's a sad reflection of where the industry stands today."

The pattern wasn't unique to Lintas. DDB, founded in 1949 by Bill Bernbach, Ned Doyle and Maxwell Dane, had introduced modesty, wit and honesty into an industry that relied on hyperbole. In India, DDB arrived through its partnership with Mudra Communications, founded in 1980 by A.G. Krishnamurthy in Ahmedabad with just Rs 40,000 and 15 employees. Mudra quickly became known for campaigns that blended emotional storytelling with cultural insight. The agency's 1983 "I love you Rasna" campaign turned a regional soft drink concentrate into a national favourite, with a child actor's lisping voice driving Rasna to become India's largest-selling soft drink concentrate by 1986.

FCB's global history started in 1873 as Lord & Thomas in Chicago. In India, its presence is tied to Ulka Advertising, founded in 1961. Ulka shaped the Indian FMCG sector with consumer-focused campaigns, notably the lasting partnership with Nerolac, which created the iconic tagline, "Jab ghar ki raunak badhani ho." 

MullenLowe's Indian roots predate both. Established in Mumbai in 1969 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Lever International Advertising Service (Unilever's advertising arm), Lintas initially focused on Unilever's portfolio. The agency quickly became a TV advertising pioneer in India, producing early influential commercials. Notably, the 1975 "Liril Girl" campaign for Liril soap introduced dynamic storytelling to Doordarshan audiences.

Despite their brand-building expertise, these agencies couldn't safeguard their own identities against the prevailing logic of holding companies.

Bhasin emphasises that as an acquirer, Omnicom’s first priority is synergy. “Synergy comes from streamlined structures, fewer people, and the removal of duplication. People costs make up 50-60% of an agency's total expenses, sometimes even more, so that's where the biggest savings lie."

Even before the deal was formally announced, both IPG and Omnicom had signalled thousands of job cuts, with more announced since. 

K V Sridhar, known widely as Pops, watched this unfold with similar emotion. These were agencies founded by some of the greatest minds in global advertising, he notes, names that inspired generations to enter the industry.

"We grew up believing that people retire, but brands endure, but today, it feels like even the brands are retiring," Pops, Founder & CCO of Hypercollective, says. "Names like Leo Burnett, Lintas, JWT, Lowe, BBH, and Saatchi were once the giants that inspired generations to enter this industry, and watching them disappear is shocking. It's like waking up one day to find that Surf or Vim no longer exist."

The disappearance reflects something deeper than market shifts. The global networks – WPP, Publicis, and Omnicom – are now run by financial and operational professionals, not creative founders, Pops explains. To them, it doesn't matter whether they're selling cars, managing data, or running an ad agency. "Passion and craft have taken a back seat, and creative agencies have lost their central place in the ecosystem. Media, tech, and digital businesses contribute more revenue to these networks now, so the creative side keeps shrinking."

Agencies like Leo Burnett or Ogilvy once earned 100% of their revenue from advertising. Today, according to Pops, only 30 to 40% comes from pure creative work, with the rest coming from digital, tech and media. The financial pressure is relentless. Between the Omnicom-IPG acquisition alone, roughly 10,000 jobs were expected to be lost in a single year. Add recent cuts from other giants, 11,000 at Accenture, 7,000 at WPP, and the scale of industry transformation becomes clear.

Sumanto Chattopadhyay, former Chairman and CCO at 82.5 Communications, Ogilvy Group, frames the loss from a different perspective.

"To me, it's never been about DDB, FCB and MullenLowe, but Mudra, Ulka and Lintas, and what they stood for. These were three distinct schools of thought," Chattopadhyay says. 

"Starting in Ahmedabad, Mudra took small, regionally strong businesses and turned them into national brands. 'I love you, Rasna' became the taste of summer in our childhood. 'God's Own Country' became our holiday destination of choice. Ulka proved that hard-working advertising could be 'the taste of India'. Lintas defined modern Indian brand imagery, from the Liril girl under the waterfall to Surf's no-nonsense Lalitaji. Alyque Padamsee saw brands as pop culture, not just communication."

Each agency had its own way of seeing the country. Mudra focused on small-town aspirations, Ulka brought consumer-first rigour, and Lintas captured social change. Under Alyque Padamsee's leadership from 1979 to 1993, the agency continued innovating, introducing advanced media strategies. FCB Ulka's decades-long partnerships with brands like Amul, Tata Motors and Nerolac produced campaigns that entered daily conversation. 

The writing on the wall

Arun Iyer spent 16 of his 20 advertising years at Lowe Lintas, the last six as Chief Creative Officer and Chairman. For him, the current moment carries less surprise than for others.

"I'm not sure these global networks ever truly defined a unique creative philosophy in India on their own. FCB leaned heavily on Ulka's legacy, Mullen drew from Lintas, and DDB drew from Mudra," Iyer, now the Founder and Partner at Spring Marketing Capital, says. "These global names often relied on strong Indian agencies to give them credibility and relevance in the local market. In that sense, the real loss is the fading of iconic Indian names like Ulka and Mudra. Lintas still survives, but in a new form under TBWA."

The challenges in the business have been evident for years, Iyer notes. People have been talking across companies about how the consumer ecosystem has evolved rapidly, while the marketing and agency ecosystem hasn't kept pace. Globally, you hear far more about holding companies being under pressure than being comfortably placed. So while this moment may feel emotional for those closely associated with these agencies, the signs have been visible for a long time.

"As for the current consolidation, many call it a merger, but it is effectively a buyout. Omnicom has acquired IPG. Naturally, Omnicom will prioritise its own brands while preserving local identities only where they see value," Iyer says. "Yes, it feels like things are shrinking, and that sense of an era ending is understandable. But this shift has been building for a long time. It isn't something that happened overnight."

The warning signs were there for a decade after 2010. Traditional agencies continued thinking in terms of TV scripts instead of formats like carousels, interactive content or algorithm-driven storytelling, Pops explains. Modern mediums — connected TV, OTT, interactive platforms, and creator co-creation — demand a new mindset. Creative agencies must grasp the possibilities of each technology.

Pops shares, "The conflict today is that people who understand creativity often don't understand the internet, while those who understand platforms and algorithms don't always understand creativity. This gap exists globally."

Meanwhile, consolidation accelerated across the industry. Publicis created Publicis One, WPP went heavy on tech and shut down or merged most of its creative agencies, sparing only Ogilvy. Grey Advertising vanished into a line item on a WPP spreadsheet five years ago. JWT's 152-year lineage got compressed into VML. Leo Burnett became just Leo.

In India specifically, the holding company restructure announced on December 1 appointed Prasoon Joshi as Chairman of Omnicom Advertising India, Aditya Kanthy as President and MD, and S. Subramanyeswar as Chief Strategy Officer for India and Chief Knowledge Officer for Asia. Effective January 1, 2026, all agency CEOs and business groups, including McCann led by Dheeraj Sinha and Rahul Mathew, BBDO led by Josy Paul, TBWA Lintas helmed by Govind Pandey and Prateek Bhardwaj, and digital arms Kinnect and 22feet Tribal led by Chandni Shah, will report directly to Kanthy.

What will survive when the names are gone

Bhasin believes the agencies will always be remembered for the iconic brands and campaigns they created, many ahead of their time. Work like Liril and Hamara Bajaj set standards in Indian advertising that others followed. But even more importantly, they'll be remembered for the leaders they produced.

Bhasin comments, "We had iconic figures like Alyque Padamsee, who became the face of Indian advertising, and Prem Mehta, who expanded the agency into multiple specialised units. Many of the industry's top leaders in later decades, across creative and account management, emerged from Lintas. It wasn't just an agency. It was a place that shaped people."

For those who joined straight out of college or MBA programs, Lintas felt like a continuation of campus life, Bhasin explains. There was a unique, family-like culture that only those who experienced it can truly understand. Even today, groups of former Lintas employees from the 1980s and beyond stay connected, bonded by deep fondness and memories they share. That sense of belonging and the legacy of leadership are what the agency will be remembered for.

Chattopadhyay returns to the work itself. "These agencies' way of seeing India, Ulka's consumer-first rigour, Mudra's small-town aspirations and Lintas's flair for capturing social change, will outlast the holding companies who killed them in the name of simplification, efficiency and AI-led scale. People will sing or talk about Nerolac's 'Jab ghar ki raunak badhani ho', LIC's 'Zindagi ke saath bhi, zindagi ke baad bhi' and 'Hamara Bajaj', long after the agency names are taken down from the office walls."

Yet Pops offers a sobering counterpoint. He's not sure how long these agency names will survive in memory. Eventually, everything will be consolidated the way media already has been, into "Omnicom Creative," "WPP Creative," or a single Publicis agency, because consolidation is the only way these groups can cut costs and maintain margins.

“But in doing so, they also dig their own grave. Once technology companies, Accenture, IBM, Deloitte, fully understand creativity, they will take a significant share of the business," Pops notes.

Iyer's assessment reflects similar pragmatism. Agencies are ultimately remembered for the brands they've built, and many of these companies shaped brands that became part of India's social fabric. He continues, “Realistically, I'm not sure how many people in the future will even recognise these agency names. If the brands themselves cease to exist, only those who worked with them or lived through their peak years will recall what they stood for. As that generation fades, it's likely that some of these agency brands will no longer be remembered a decade from now."

The dissolution of DDB, FCB and MullenLowe marks more than organisational restructuring. It marks the end of an era when advertising agencies were built by passionate storytellers… when names on office doors stood for distinct philosophies and ways of seeing the world, and when young professionals travelled across the country for a chance to learn in a place like Lintas. 

The agencies they built produced not just campaigns but generations of talent who went on to shape the industry. They created work that entered everyday language and cultural memory. They proved that advertising could be both commercially successful and culturally meaningful.

Now those names will live only in memories, case studies and conversations between people who were shaped by them. For now, those who grew up under these agencies are left to carry forward the stories, the madness, the magic. DDB, MulleLowe and FCB will continue to live in these stories. Forever.