Why creativity, not data and automation, will define the future of advertising, Amitesh Rao explains

New Delhi: Advertising knows everything about us now. What we see, what we click, and what we ignore. The irony? We barely remember any of it.

Every impression is tracked, every interaction analysed, every campaign optimised in real time. And yet, for all this intelligence and precision, most advertising still slips out of our minds almost as soon as it appears.

This great irony of modern marketing was at the heart of an exclusive interaction with Amitesh Rao, Chief Executive Officer, South Asia - Leo, Publicis Health and Publicis Business.

The conversation cut through the usual industry noise to land on an uncomfortable truth: data and automation can optimise advertising, but they cannot define its future. Only creativity can.

Watch the full interaction here:

Rao does not argue against data. He argues against mistaking data for direction. “Transformation is actually a fact of life now. It transcends people, societies, cultures, businesses, and sectors. We are perhaps in the most transformational age of human civilisation, and I don’t even know if we fully understand the extent of transformation we are going through,” Rao said.

Much of that transformation is currently being framed through the lens of artificial intelligence. However, Rao believes this framing is too narrow.

He noted that the narrative is often dominated by AI, but transformation is taking shape in many forms, including engineering, biotechnology, AI, and even the social and cultural fabric. He emphasised that the industry is living through a transformative era, which he finds exciting.

Advertising’s problem, however, is not transformation. It is the confusion around what transformation is meant to serve.

Over the past decade, marketing has increasingly equated progress with efficiency. Faster turnaround times, sharper targeting, lower costs per conversion. Automation delivers all of this. But efficiency alone does not build brands.

“Efficiency is a means to an end, not the end itself. AI is still my slave, not my master. Our master is still in our minds,” Rao said.

That distinction matters because advertising is now operating inside what Rao calls the attention economy, an environment defined by relentless fragmentation. “The attention economy is the biggest shift. Fragmentation of attention is humongous. Doom scrolling is real. It’s what all of us do,” he noted.

In such a world, reach has become cheap. Attention has not.

“Reach in itself is necessary but not sufficient. Anybody can buy reach with money. What matters is what you are reaching people with,” Rao said.

This is where creativity is reclaiming its importance, not as a decorative layer added after the media plan, but as the core strategic force. Rao observed that jingles or baselines are no longer being chased; instead, meaning is being pursued.

He argued that meaning is the only durable currency left in advertising, noting that recall comes from meaning rather than words. In today’s world, consumers will not resonate with a brand unless they understand what it stands for.

This marks a critical shift. For decades, marketing was built on repetition. Say something often enough and loudly enough, and it sticks. That logic collapses in a fragmented ecosystem where consumers encounter brands in fleeting, inconsistent moments across platforms, formats, languages, and contexts.

“The best brands are those that stitch meaning across formats, cultures, languages, and experiences. That is what defines success today,” Rao noted.

Data helps brands understand what is happening. Creativity explains why it should matter.

Yet the industry has been far quicker to master the science than the substance. “We have learned the maths and science of performance faster than we have learned how to create meaning at scale. But that learning is happening,” Rao said.

The risk, he warned, is homogenisation. When data is allowed to become the sole decision-maker, advertising begins to converge on the same safe answers. He observed that the danger of data-driven creativity lies in falling into a sea of sameness, emphasising that the human mind must work with data rather than surrender to it.

This concern is often misunderstood in debates around personalisation. More data, critics argue, leads to narrower, less imaginative work.

Rao disagrees strongly. “I violently disagree with the idea that personalisation reduces creativity. Creativity still has a role; it just manifests differently,” he said.

The real issue, according to Rao, is not data itself but how it is used. When creativity follows data blindly, it shrinks. When creativity works with data, it expands.

Crucially, Rao is clear that creativity must remain accountable. He explained that creativity has never been an end in itself and that if it does not lead to a business outcome, it is meaningless. He emphasised that the work is not meant to exist in a museum.

This balance between imagination and impact shapes Leo’s approach to client relationships. “The fundamentals of client relationships haven’t changed. We exist to grow business, build brands, influence people, and create change,” Rao noted.

What has changed is the certainty with which those outcomes can be predicted. Rao explained that experimentation has become essential, as both clients and agencies are attempting initiatives that have not been tried before. He noted that the road is being built as it is being walked on.

That experimentation cuts across age and scale. “This is no longer about start-ups versus legacy companies. Whether you’re 150 years old or 1.5 months old, experimentation is an absolute necessity,” he said.

Experimentation is inevitably accompanied by failure. According to Rao, failure becomes part of the journey; some initiatives succeed, while others provide learning. He emphasised that this is how evolution occurs.

As brands respond to rising costs and the adoption of new technologies, more work is moving in-house. Rao stated that this shift is natural but incomplete, noting that creativity is fundamentally about perspective and that one of the greatest values an agency brings is an external point of view.

Automation can absorb repeatable, formulaic tasks. But originality resists confinement. “With AI and technology, some formulaic work may move in-house, but high-order creativity still needs independent thinking,” Rao said.

This is why Rao rejects the idea that AI threatens creative agencies. He noted that AI is not an existential crisis for creative companies. “It is an existential crisis for consulting companies,” he observed.

At the heart of Rao’s thinking is a long-term view of brand building, something dashboards struggle to capture. “It takes a much shorter time to go to market today, but building a brand is still about endurance,” he said.

Brands, Rao argued, should not be seen as campaigns or isolated moments. They are not episodic but franchises, more like long-running web series that unfold over hundreds of seasons rather than a single episode.

And franchises cannot be built on trends or optimisation hacks. “If you believe a brand will be built on a trend, you are in for a rude shock,” he said.

In an industry racing toward automation, Rao’s position is both grounded and quietly defiant. Data will continue to grow. Technology will get smarter. But neither can answer the most important question advertising faces today: why should anyone care?

Only creativity can do that.

Watch the full video conversation here: