What clients expect from agencies after Indian advertising’s turbulent 2025

The year 2025 in Indian advertising will be remembered less for its creative output and more for the intense systemic pressures it faced. A convergence of regulatory, commercial, and structural disruptions reshaped how agencies, brands, and media owners operated. Amid prolonged uncertainty and recalibration, creativity struggled to remain the industry’s primary organising force, increasingly expected to justify itself through efficiency, accountability, and business impact.

Regulatory scrutiny emerged as one of the most consequential shifts of the year. The Competition Commission of India’s investigation into alleged cartelisation within the media ecosystem unsettled long-established norms around media buying and pricing, particularly ahead of a crucial IPL season. What was once treated as an operational backend — governance, compliance, and transparency — moved firmly to the centre of business decision-making. For agencies, this marked a transition from informal alignment to formal accountability, altering how trust is built and sustained across the ecosystem.

From a commercial standpoint, the sharp contraction of online real-money gaming advertising exposed the industry’s dependence on a narrow set of high-spending categories. Regulatory tightening effectively wiped out a segment that had fuelled rapid growth across digital, television, celebrity endorsements, and influencer marketing. The sudden loss of this revenue stream prompted uncomfortable conversations around business viability and risk concentration. For brands, it reinforced the need for partners who think beyond momentary spikes and instead build long-term relevance. 

On where agencies are going wrong, Amit Mathur, President – Sales and Marketing, Finolex Cables Ltd, points to an overemphasis on formats and trends.

“Agencies today need to think long-term. The industry is still too reactive, chasing formats and trends instead of anchoring ideas in consumer truth,” says Mathur. 

“What we need now is strategic depth, regional nuance, and a stronger understanding of how creativity can serve business outcomes,” he adds. 

For Mathur, the value lies in agencies that treat marketing as a continuous narrative rather than fragmented campaigns, an approach increasingly critical in a culturally diverse and behaviourally complex market like India.

Structural upheaval within agency networks added to the uncertainty. Global consolidation, most visibly through the Omnicom-IPG merger, accelerated the erosion of legacy agency identities in India. As established names were absorbed or restructured, concerns around leadership continuity, creative independence, and talent retention intensified. This transformation also exposed a deeper misalignment between industry rhetoric and internal reality. The consolidation signalled a broader shift in agency valuation, where scale, efficiency, and data capabilities are prioritised, often at the cost of distinct creative cultures that once defined Indian advertising.

This transformation also exposed a deeper misalignment between industry rhetoric and internal reality. 

Looking back at 2025 and sharing his advice for agencies, Prasun Kumar, Chief Marketing Officer at Magicbricks says, “Evolve far more fundamentally than they [agencies] currently are. While everyone talks about AI, automation, the rise of video-first consumption, and the decline of traditional ATL, very few agencies have actually changed their internal capabilities or workflows to match this reality. Many still operate with structures that belonged to a different era, and that limits the value they bring.”

Kumar’s critique reflects a broader frustration among marketers who believe agencies must evolve more fundamentally. “Agencies must now reinvent themselves — become more agile, more tech-aware, and more accountable,” he says. “If they don’t tune themselves to the new environment, they risk being disrupted instead of being part of the disruption.” 

This urgency is also reshaping production expectations. “Three years ago, we prioritised large-scale productions and high-end creative work,” Kumar notes. “Today, we expect agencies to be equally strong at producing high-quality, low-cost video content at speed. The market demands more agility and more formats than ever before.”

Technology, particularly artificial intelligence, added another layer of complexity. While AI moved decisively from experimentation to application in areas such as content creation and performance marketing, adoption across agencies remained uneven. The challenge was less about access to tools and more about readiness — reskilling talent, rethinking workflows, and integrating AI into core creative and strategic processes rather than treating it as a bolt-on solution.

For many brands, technical capability is no longer optional but foundational. Sapna Desai, Chief Marketing Officer at ManipalCigna Health Insurance, says, “Today, I expect stronger tech savviness, particularly around AI and automation, deeper data fluency, and a clear linkage between creative decisions and business impact.”

Desai also points to a shift in how agencies are evaluated. “Agencies need to operate as true business partners, not just creative vendors,” she says. “Those who understand business objectives, speak the language of growth, and connect creativity to outcomes are the ones winning trust.” Cultural agility, she adds, is equally critical. “The agencies succeeding today are those that challenge our thinking, move at speed, and demonstrate measurable impact,” particularly across tier-one and tier-three markets.

Taken together, the developments of 2025 point to an industry in a difficult but necessary transition. While the year delivered few defining creative milestones, it forced Indian advertising to confront long-ignored structural weaknesses — overreliance on volatile categories, outdated agency models, and fragmented technology adoption. As the industry moves into 2026, the challenge will be to ensure that efficiency, compliance, and scale do not sideline creativity, but instead create the conditions for sharper thinking, deeper partnerships, and more accountable creative ambition.