Martin Sorrell urges Indian brands to adopt AI and performance-led marketing
S4 Capital founder Martin Sorrell says India’s advertising market should expand with the economy, but large brands risk losing ground to faster rivals unless they embrace AI, performance buying, influencers and social platforms.
What happened
S4 Capital founder Martin Sorrell says Indian advertising should grow alongside the fast-growing economy, with digital media accounting for roughly 60% of the
Key facts
- $1.2 trillion global advertising market
- $900 billion global digital advertising market
- $300 billion in linear TV, traditional media and live sports
- 75% worldwide digital-media share
- around 60% digital-media share in India
Why this matters
Strategic buyers should prioritize acquisitions or partnerships in AI media optimization, influencer measurement and social-performance capabilities as Indian brands shift budgets toward digital channels.
What to watch
- Digital media share of Indian ad spend moving materially above 60%, especially in FMCG, auto, financial services and consumer durables.
- Growth in retail-media inventory and closed-loop measurement from marketplaces, quick-commerce platforms and large retailers.
- Major advertisers moving media buying, creative production or data capabilities in-house.
- Creator-commerce conversion tools, affiliate models and vernacular-content spending gaining share of campaign budgets.
- Evidence that AI-generated creative lowers production cycle time and customer-acquisition cost without reducing brand metrics.
- New privacy, influencer-disclosure, synthetic-content or competition rules that alter targeting and measurement economics.
- Audit media mix against category peers, separating awareness spend from attributable acquisition and retention spend.
- Build a first-party data and experimentation roadmap before scaling AI-driven targeting or creative production.
- Pilot always-on performance programs across search, social, video, marketplaces and retail media with incrementality-based measurement.
- Create a creator strategy using tiered influencer pools, standardized disclosure rules and sales-linked compensation where feasible.
- Reassess agency contracts around AI-enabled production, data access, attribution ownership and outcome-based incentives.
- Prepare brand-safety, IP, consumer-privacy and AI-governance controls as content volume rises.