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Publicis Groupe India launches data-led influencer platform ‘Influential’
A new platform, a seasoned hire and an ambitious plan to bring discipline to India’s booming but chaotic creator economy.
MUMBAI: Influencer marketing in India is big, messy and, for most brands, maddeningly hard to measure. Publicis Groupe India has decided it has had enough of that and is moving to fix it.
The advertising giant has launched Influential, its global creator marketing solution, in India, pairing the rollout with the appointment of Diwaker Chandani as managing partner for Influential India. The brief is blunt: drag influencer marketing out of the spray-and-pray era and into one defined by data, accountability and results that actually show up on a balance sheet.
A fragmented market ripe for disruption
India’s influencer ecosystem has scale in abundance. What it lacks is maturity. Measurement standards are inconsistent, creator databases are riddled with duplication, and brands remain dangerously hooked on organic reach, a strategy that flatters vanity metrics while delivering uncertain commercial returns. Chandani, who brings nearly two decades of experience across digital platforms and media, puts it plainly. “The ecosystem has scale, but not maturity,” he says. “By combining data-led audience intelligence with creator ecosystems and media amplification, we aim to build a model that delivers measurable and repeatable outcomes.”
It is a diagnosis that Publicis Groupe is staking serious infrastructure on. Influential is anchored in the group’s Connected Identity system, which maps consumer profiles to enable more precise audience targeting and creator selection. Layered on top are the Captiv8 platform and Influential’s global creator network, giving brands the tools to plan, activate and measure campaigns across the full funnel, from awareness down to commerce, rather than treating each influencer post as a standalone act of faith.
The hire
Chandani is not an unfamiliar face in the industry. He has held senior roles at Meta, Zee Entertainment and the Network18 Group, working across creator partnerships and content-led media strategies. His mandate at Influential India is to integrate data, creators, media and commerce into a unified framework and to build the team and client roster to scale it.
Anupriya Acharya, chief executive of Publicis Groupe South Asia, frames the launch as a response to a market that has grown faster than its own infrastructure. “The channel has reached scale, but lacks a unified, data-led foundation,” she says. “With Influential, we are moving from a creator-first approach to a cohort-first, identity-led model powered by Connected Identity.” The integration of creators, media and commerce, she adds, will enable more precise and scalable outcomes for brands.
Why now
The timing is deliberate. Influencer marketing in India is expanding rapidly, fuelled by cheap data, a vast and young social-media audience, and brands increasingly willing to redirect budgets away from traditional media. But growth without governance has created a market where consistent returns remain elusive and accountability is largely aspirational. Publicis Groupe is betting that the industry’s next phase belongs not to whoever has the biggest roster of creators, but to whoever can prove, with hard numbers, that those creators are actually shifting product.
The old model of picking a popular face, posting a reel and hoping for the best is running out of road. Influential is Publicis Groupe India’s wager that the future belongs to the spreadsheet as much as the selfie.
AD Agencies
Havas Media Network India names Archana Aggarwal chief growth officer
The appointment comes as the network accelerates its integrated, data-led push across one of its top ten global markets.
MUMBAI: Havas Media Network India is moving fast, and it wants someone who can move faster.
The network has appointed Archana Aggarwal as chief growth officer, tasking her with driving the new business agenda and deepening client partnerships across Havas Media, PivotRoots, Havas Play and Arena Media. Based in Gurugram, she will report to Mohit Joshi, chief executive of Havas Media Network India.
Aggarwal arrives with more than two decades of media and marketing experience, most recently as vice-president of media at Airtel, where she led integrated media strategies tied to shifting consumer behaviour and business outcomes. Before that, she worked across some of the world’s most demanding marketing accounts, including P&G, Unilever, L’Oréal, Coca-Cola, the Diamond Trading Corporation and Airtel, spanning FMCG, telecom and the broader marketing ecosystem. She is noted for her command of emerging platforms, including connected TV, AI and the metaverse.
Rana Barua, group chief executive of Havas India, South-East Asia and North Asia, framed the hire as timely. “India continues to be a critical market for Havas globally and is among our top ten markets worldwide,” he said, noting strong momentum across the network’s integrated model and growing client partnerships. “Archana’s appointment comes at a pivotal time as we continue to scale our capabilities and accelerate growth.”
Joshi was equally direct. “Her deep understanding of consumer behaviour and proven ability to translate insights into business outcomes will be instrumental as we continue to scale our integrated, data-led capabilities across agencies,” he said.
Havas Media Network India currently serves more than 100 clients and employs over 1,000 professionals across Gurugram, Mumbai and Bengaluru. The network’s growth engine runs on Converged.AI, its proprietary operating system that brings together data, technology and human insight under the global vision of “Growth Powered by Desire.”
Aggarwal, for her part, called the opportunity compelling. “The chance to drive growth across a diverse and integrated ecosystem is exciting,” she said. “I look forward to working with the teams to deliver meaningful impact for clients.”
In a market where media fragmentation is accelerating and clients are demanding cleaner proof of return, Havas has hired someone who has sat on both sides of the table. That, in itself, is a statement of intent.
