Leadership, agency relevance and long-term brand building: Finolex’s key lessons from 2025

Finolex Cables had an eventful year, commissioning a new electron-beam facility to strengthen manufacturing of high-performance cables for EVs, solar, and demanding industrial uses. The company also expanded key plant capacities, advanced new factory developments, and enhanced optic fibre and telecom cable capabilities.

On the brand front, Finolex translated this momentum into communication via the ongoing "No Stress. Finolex" campaign. The campaign shifted its focus from functional messaging to highlighting everyday household moments, utilising humour and cultural resonance to reinforce trust within a category typically engaged with only during times of malfunction. By establishing the brand within relatable, lived-in scenarios, the campaign aimed to enhance brand recall while signalling Finolex's expanding presence across the electrical and appliance sectors.

Simultaneously, the advertising ecosystem experienced significant transformations. Agency mergers, shifts in talent strategy, and the rapid adoption of emerging formats and platforms have often resulted in execution prioritising current trends over a deep understanding of the category. For brands operating in low-involvement or traditionally technical sectors, this risks yielding communication that, while modern in appearance, lacks substantive depth, continuity, or demonstrable business relevance.

Amit Mathur, President – Sales and Marketing, Finolex Cables Ltd, speaks to us on what agencies still get wrong about marketing in low-involvement categories. He reflects on why strategic depth matters more than format-chasing, how humour and cultural nuance can drive recall without diluting credibility, and what brands like Finolex now expect from agency partners navigating categories where trust is earned slowly but lost quickly.

Excerpts:

Q. Looking back, what did 2025 teach you about leadership? What would you consider your biggest win in 2025?

2025 reminded me that leadership is mostly about staying clear-headed when the environment is anything but predictable. Markets shifted quickly, sentiment changed region to region, and multiple external forces played out at once. Through all of this, I found that teams look for clarity, consistency, and a sense of shared purpose more than anything else. If you can give them that, performance naturally follows.

Our biggest win this year was the cultural shift. We brought our sales, marketing, manufacturing, and channel ecosystem into far closer alignment. That alignment allowed us to respond faster, plan more cohesively, and build greater trust with our partners. It wasn’t about one project — it was about the entire organisation moving confidently in the same direction.

Q. One campaign from 2025 that stood out for Finolex and how did it contribute to business or brand equity?

This year, the campaign that truly stood out for us was the new No Stress. Finolex communication. We built it on a very simple insight: people remember what feels real and emotionally familiar. The campaign takes everyday household scenarios — moments of gathering, comfort, and togetherness — and shows how Finolex products quietly enable these experiences.

It draws from nostalgia but narrates it in a modern context, where fans, LEDs, smart door locks and wiring are seamlessly woven into daily life. The use of light humour and cultural relevance helped the communication feel effortless and human. More importantly, it reaffirmed Finolex’s place as a brand built on trust and reliability while signalling that we are constantly evolving with newer categories and expectations. The response from consumers and our channel partners has been extremely encouraging because people saw themselves in the stories.

Q. For Finolex, how does humour help deepen recall and preference? How do you keep it effective and not frivolous?

Humour works when it comes from a place of truth. In our category, people typically engage only when something goes wrong. So the challenge is to make them notice the brand even when everything is working perfectly.

Humour helps open that door — but it must be rooted in everyday reality, not forced behaviour. 

Our stories come from relatable moments, small quirks, and real family dynamics. That’s why the humour never feels frivolous. It stays connected to the brand promise and strengthens recall organically.

Q. Finolex has invested significantly in expanding manufacturing. How would you evaluate progress, and what milestones are planned for 2026?

We commissioned our new electron-beam facility — a milestone that materially upgrades our ability to produce advanced, high-performance cables suited for EVs, solar applications, and industrial environments that demand higher temperature tolerance and longer life. Parallelly, we expanded capacities at key plants and progressed on new factory developments that will support future product lines. Alongside this, we made meaningful progress in optic-fibre and telecom cable expansion through backward integration and enhanced cabling capacities.

In 2026, our focus is on full commercial ramp-up. We expect the E-beam facility to reflect more visibly in our premium and specialized products. We anticipate meaningful scale from our fibre and auto-wire expansions as the auto, energy, and telecom industries grow. Overall, these investments strengthen our readiness for new-age applications and give us a more future-facing manufacturing base.

Q. With EV adoption and household electrification rising, how did Finolex leverage the shift? Which segments will be the biggest growth engines in 2026?

The rise of EVs and the broader electrification of homes and businesses has shifted demand toward cables that are more durable, heat-resistant, and technologically advanced. Our recent investments align strongly with this transition. The commissioning of the electron-beam facility further enables us to produce cables suited for EV and solar requirements.

On the digital side, the expansion of optic fibre capacity positions us well for the broadband and 5G push across the country. As we look to 2026, we expect the strongest momentum to come from EV-aligned products, solar and renewable energy cables, auto-wires, and fibre-based communication products. These are the segments shaping India’s mobility, energy, and connectivity landscape and we’re investing ahead of the curve.

Q. In what ways did 2025 accelerate your use of data, automation, or AI in marketing? What would you do differently next year?

This year, our primary focus was on strengthening product and manufacturing capabilities, so our use of data and automation in marketing is still at a foundational stage. We’ve taken steps to bring more discipline into digital planning and to improve transparency across distribution channels, but there is still a lot of headroom.

Looking ahead, I see real opportunity in building stronger insight systems — integrating sales patterns, channel behaviour, consumer sentiment, and market signals into a unified view. As our portfolio expands into smart home solutions, small appliances, EV cables, fibre, new categories, along with the need to fortify our existing product categories, a more insight-led approach will help us become sharper and more predictive. We’re laying the groundwork for that future.

Q. Your advice for agencies in 2026? What are they still getting wrong? What are you asking from agencies today that you weren’t three years ago? 

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

What we need now is strategic depth, regional nuance, and a stronger understanding of how creativity can serve business outcomes. We value partners who approach marketing as a continuous narrative — not a series of disconnected campaigns — and who can help us stay relevant across India’s diverse cultural and behavioural spectrum.

Q. By 2030, how do you see messaging in the building-materials sector evolving? What place do you want Finolex to occupy in that landscape? 

By 2030, the sector will behave far more like a technology and lifestyle category. India’s homes will be more connected, more energy-efficient, more digitally enabled, and built around long-term safety and sustainability. Messaging will shift toward durability, future-readiness, electrical safety, green energy alignment, and the seamless functioning of modern homes.

As broadband expands, data centres become ubiquitous, EV adoption accelerates, and solar penetration rises, the role of wiring, cables, and connectivity will become far more central. People will want brands that offer peace of mind and long-term reliability. My ambition is for Finolex to be the brand that embodies that trust — a brand that sets the standard for what future-ready electrical and connectivity solutions should look like. Whether it is home wiring, EV infrastructure, solar, or fibre, I want Finolex to be seen as the benchmark of reliability and safety.

Q. What skillsets will be most crucial for marketing talent over the next three years? And your personal ambition for 2026?

The next few years will require marketers who can navigate data and culture with equal ease. They must understand analytics while also having the ability to read human behaviour, sentiment, and regional nuance. Adaptability, curiosity and comfort with ambiguity will define the next generation of leaders.

For me, 2026 is about elevating the marketing function so that it becomes even more insight-led, more agile, and more reflective of India’s changing aspirations. I want our work to feel grounded, forward-looking, and culturally relevant — all at the same time.

Q. By the end of 2026, what will success look like for Finolex’s marketing function?

For me, success will be when Finolex is recognised as the first choice for consumers, electricians, channel partners, and emerging sectors like EV and fibre. By the end of 2026, our brand must feel more future-ready, more relatable, more culturally rooted, and more relevant across a wider set of applications, I would consider that a meaningful achievement.

Success is when our expanded portfolio is understood naturally by the market, and when choosing Finolex feels less like a decision and more like an instinct. That is the kind of resonance we are working toward.