Advertisers cautious despite 10-12% festive boost: Amin Lakhani

New Delhi: The Festive season, the bright spot on the advertising calendar, is forecasted to jump 10-12% this year, but Amin Lakhani, President - Client Solutions, WPP Media (South Asia), prefers to call the mood one of “cautious realism.” 

“Advertisers are cautious. They will still hedge bets. A sense of cautious realism persists. While some shoots of hope are emerging from retail and a few other sectors, Lakhani believes the industry is “hoping with bated breath that H2 will be better than last year.” 

This tone of careful optimism underscores the larger shifts shaping India’s advertising playbook. It is a collection of disruptions that are paving multiple crossroads for the future of the ecosystem. 

From Connected TV’s surging penetration to the commotion created by disruptions in real money gaming, from the looming weight of retail media to the unpredictability of AI, Lakhani sees the ecosystem experiencing disruptions and cautions on the same palette. 

Disruption #1

Real money gaming was hit with a blanket ban. As the debate between skill vs chance goes on hiatus, Lakhani sees a recalibration of spending happening. “Categories like FMCG or Auto may gain traction in the space where RMG was once a heavy spender.” 

The noise made by the breaking of the Rs 358 crore jersey deal between BCCI and Dream11 clearly points out how the commotion has affected the space. The company withdrew nearly half a year before the contract ended, although it is unlikely to face any penalties. 

However, Lakhani clarified, it is not as simple as assuming that just because RMG is gone, FMCG or auto will automatically fill that space. “The absence of one buyer group does not guarantee that others will rush in. 

Bringing in a flavour of caution, Lakhani elaborated that FMCG and auto advertisers plan differently. They focus on long-term brand building and structured media strategies. What RMG brands were buying was mostly “impact inventory”, comprising big-ticket events and high-visibility slots. 

“Impact plays a very different role in the marketing mix, and only those categories that rely on impact will continue to chase those opportunities,” Lakhani toldBestMediaInfo.com.  

While the festive quarter may absorb some of the immediate shock, the long-term implications of RMGs’ exit remain unclear, making it a big question mark in India’s advertising playbook.

Disruption #2

While RMG is expected to create a vacuum in the ad space, Connected TV, on the other hand, is reeling in advertising dollars. Lakhani explained it with a first-principles view. “Money will flow where the eyeballs are.  

“With CTV reaching around 140 million individuals, the scale is already huge, and naturally advertisers want to spend there. India has always been a multi-screen market. Connected TV is simply another screen that is demanding attention, and that’s why it is gaining so much traction. Clients see the opportunity and are rightly investing in it,” Lakhani said. 

CPMs for CTV loom somewhere four to five times higher than those on linear TV. But this has not slowed down the advertisers. Lakhani was quick to dismiss it as hype. 

He noted, “I don’t think money will flow into CTV just because of hype. The consistent growth in CTV penetration has merit, and so does the way clients are seeing outcomes from their campaigns on CTV apps. That’s why investments are steadily moving in that direction and will likely continue.” 

The causality between caution and concern is quite clear. The concern is that the ‘seller’ and the ‘scorekeeper’ are often the same. In simple terms, in the connected TV space, the inventory being sold and the numbers reported on it often come from the same source. 

Lakhani highlighted how, mirroring the fragmentation in screens, there are fragmented solutions that solve the problem as a whole. Agencies like IAS and Moat do allow tech measurements, but can they really replace the much-needed standardisation? 

Deciphering the query for us, Lakhani explained, “These tech solutions provide multiple layers of measurement. At both the agency and client levels, we often insist on using such systems. In fact, several clients have already implemented custom-made solutions at smaller cohort levels, and these have delivered good results.” 

“At a platform-specific level, we do have data and analytics frameworks that we have institutionalised for certain clients. These have been working well and are showing some very strong outcomes,” he added. 

This conversation even holds true for the wider discourse on the lack of clean inventories in the digital space. Addressing the same, Lakhani called for an industry-wide debate on accountability. 

“The more we talk about this, and the more awareness we generate within both the client and agency ecosystems, the stronger our collective action will be. With the right technology, filters, and protocols in place, we can ensure that digital spends are effective and wastage is kept to a minimum,” Lakhani stated. 

Disruption #3

While the digital ecosystem is yet to get good guards, another battle has already brewed and is bustling – retail media. Moving from the disruptions in scale, the next battleground is fostering disruptions in speed. 

According to Lakhani, the digital commerce space is a journey to watch, with quick commerce being the frontrunner. “Quick commerce has grown so rapidly that even the large, established e-commerce giants are being pushed to launch their own quick-commerce options. This competition is intensifying the race for platform innovation and customer servicing,” Lakhani toldBestMediaInfo.com. 

Not just this, Meta and Google are also taking cognisance and are working to launch new offerings in this space. Just two weeks ago, Google came up with Commerce Media Suite to help brands and merchants expand reach and increase sales on quick commerce/e-commerce marketplaces. Collaborations between Zepto and The Trade Desk further bolster this argument. 

But before we focus on the platform, the real trick is happening on the planning side.

Disruption #4

Planning is increasingly being shifted into the hands of artificial intelligence. Even WPP Media is propagating the WPP Open, which claims to unleash the power of AI onto the media planning part. 

“Early deployments of AI have already delivered superior results, and this wave will not only continue but also lead to the creation of entirely new products. That, I believe, is extremely important for the future,” Lakhani said, addressing the elephant in the room.

The big concern, however, is content quality, but Lakhani does not see AI replacing creativity. 

“If the quality continues to go lower, then this will die its own natural way. Just because the generative AI engines are creating a massive number of content pieces doesn’t mean that they all will fly and they will all have equal amounts of demand,” he concluded. 

India’s advertising industry is balancing between optimism and disruption. A muted yet hopeful festive season, the uncertainty caused by the RMG exit, and the sharp rise of Connected TV are reshaping media strategies. 

Retail media, fuelled by quick commerce, is no longer a side experiment but on its way to becoming a core channel. AI is entering media planning at scale, with platforms and agencies building solutions, but questions around accountability and content quality remain open.

Because the market is cautious enough not to move on hype alone.