The Pulse Year Ender Edition 2025 through WPP Media’s lens

For India’s advertising and marketing industry, the year unfolded as a series of hard questions about credibility, relevance, scale, and purpose. Campaigns that once won applause were scrutinised for authenticity. Legacy agencies, long considered immovable pillars, found themselves being merged, dissolved, or restructured under global networks, leaving teams unsettled and clients cautious.

That moment of reflection sits at the heart of The Pulse Magazine: Year Ender Edition 2025.

Featuring Amin Lakhani, President, Client Solutions, WPP Media South Asia, on the cover, the edition captures a year defined by rest, recalibration, and reinvention. From evolving client sentiment to recalibration, from the rise of AI-enabled planning to the quiet resilience of traditional media, from the cultural moments that shaped consumer behaviour to the pressures agencies faced from all sides, Amin offers clarity in a year defined by questions.

Inside the edition

• 2025 through WPP Media’s lens: How AI accelerated marketing, outcomes took centre stage, and intent, data, and cross-platform planning drove growth across media ft. Vishal Jacob, Upali Nag Kumar, Latish Nair, Gurpreet Singh, Rajiv Rajagopal and Saif Shaikh.
• Kitchens of 2025: Premium, personalised, celebrated ft. Continental Coffee’s Raja Chakraborty, DS Group’s Sandeep Ghosh, AWL Agri Business Ltd’s Mukesh Mishra.
• Big, bold, brave movesft. Social Samosa 30 Under 30 Class of 2025: Preemrose Aranha, Neel Chatterjee, Tanvi Palaniappan Sumathi, Zoya Qureshi, Sanket Palkar, Sree Chandran, Vedika Duggal and Abhinay Tiwari.
• Is play the new pitch? How agencies are putting their best foot forward on Instagram ft. perspectives from Creativefuel’s Nikhil Sukhramani, Tonic Worldwide’s Sudish Balan and The Brand Brew’s Arman Anand.
• Brands that got India talking ft. insights from Quroz on Top 10 brands mentioned by creators in 2025.

Featured voices

• If your ad has gone viral, does it mean everyone has watched it? By Jitto George, Schbang
• Star v/s Story By Keren Benjamin Dias, White Rivers Media
• All you need to know about the two-screen advantage By Nigel D’Souza, mCanvas
• Design as the infrastructure of the possible By Vatsala Bisen, OPEN Strategy & Design
• Consistency or creativity? By Mehul Gupta, SoCheers
• Should sales be a marketing KRA? By Sonam Pama, Evocus
• The future is fractional By Julie Kriegshaber, SuperStuff.ai 
• Two years after Shark Tank By Abhishek Daga, Nasher Miles
• The great reset By Arjun Dhananjayan, 88GB
• Winning hot accounts with cold pitches By Yousuf Rangoonwala, Kakkoii Entertainment

As we turn the page to a new year, one thing is clear: The playbook isn’t just changing; it’s expanding. We’re moving towards a more integrated, more accountable, more imaginative ecosystem, one that values experimentation, welcomes diverse voices, and isn’t afraid to slow down to get it right.

Thank you for reading The Pulse, and for being part of an industry that continues to challenge itself as much as it inspires itself. Here’s to 2026!

Download The Pulse Year Ender Edition 2025