Omnicom brings back Lintas, rebranding TBWA India into TBWA-Lintas

New Delhi: In a twist few in the advertising business saw coming, Lintas, once India’s most influential agency and long considered a relic of its own legacy, has been revived under a new identity: TBWA-Lintas. 

The move follows Omnicom’s global restructuring after its acquisition of Interpublic Group (IPG), a process that retired multiple storied networks worldwide but unexpectedly preserved one Indian name.

The rebrand takes effect on January 1, 2026, when Pandey, Prateek Bhardwaj and all Omnicom creative CEOs, including McCann’s Dheeraj Sinha and Rahul Mathew, BBDO’s Josy Paul, and the heads of Kinnect and 22Feet Tribal, begin reporting directly to Aditya Kanthy, President and MD, Omnicom Advertising India.

For Govind Pandey, Chief Executive Officer, TBWA India, the development is strangely circular. Pandey began his career as a young strategist at Lintas in 1991. In 2025, 34 years later, the agency re-entered his professional orbit, this time under his leadership.

The integration is part of Omnicom’s attempt to simplify its global creative architecture after a merger that cut nearly 4,000 jobs and retired global names such as MullenLowe, FCB and DDB. In that clean-up, Lintas has resurfaced where few expected it to.

A comeback, not a museum exhibit

For more than a decade, the Lintas name was overshadowed by global restructures that pushed it under the MullenLowe umbrella. The revival gives the agency a chance to move back into the negotiations for large-scale consumer brands, provided it can demonstrate relevance beyond nostalgia.

Industry assessments indicate that Omnicom’s decision to retain the Lintas name in India is driven by its historical equity among large domestic advertisers, particularly in FMCG, retail and mass-market categories. 

While global consolidation resulted in the discontinuation of several long-established agency brands, Lintas was considered to have market-specific relevance that continues to influence client perception and business development.

The combination of TBWA’s global disruption-driven methodology with Lintas’ legacy positioning in Indian brand-building creates a hybrid model within the network’s creative portfolio. The structure is expected to offer both strategic continuity for existing clients and a broader canvas for new business opportunities across traditional and digital categories.

Operational implications for TBWA-Lintas

With this development, TBWA-Lintas will operate as the India-facing creative entity within TBWA’s global system while retaining the cultural familiarity of the Lintas name. The agency is expected to leverage TBWA’s international processes, digital capabilities through sister agencies, and Omnicom’s centralised operating structure.

The alignment strategy suggests a shift toward a full-stack creative model combining brand strategy, cultural insight, integrated digital execution and global creative standards. The agency is also expected to focus on categories where Lintas has historically held strong standing, such as consumer goods, financial services, retail and long-term brand-building mandates.

The revival comes at a time when India’s advertising market is becoming increasingly competitive, with independent agencies, digital-first players and specialist firms attracting a significant share of creative and digital budgets. 

The reinstatement of Lintas is being viewed as a tactical response to this market complexity, offering Omnicom a differentiated heritage-meets-modernity positioning in a crowded ecosystem.

What the move signals for the market

The decision to bring back Lintas positions India as one of the few markets where a legacy agency name has been preserved during a global consolidation exercise. It signals Omnicom’s recognition of the continued influence of historical agency brands in markets where long-running client relationships and local cultural understanding remain important strategic levers.

Whether TBWA-Lintas evolves into a long-term identity or functions as a transitional structure within the merged organisation will become clearer as the integration progresses across 2026. For now, the revival marks one of the most significant brand-level restructures in the Indian advertising industry in recent years.