MAM
Kyoorius Announces Kyoorius Advertising Awards in partnership with D&AD
MUMBAI: Kyoorius, a not-for-profit initiative by Transasia Fine Papers, and D&AD today announced the expansion of Kyoorius Awards to include Kyoorius Advertising Awards and Kyoori- us Digital Awards, alongside the existing Design and Student components.
Advertising continues to be a crucial medium for companies to communicate with customers and communicate their brand. However, it has become increasingly complex, since agencies have to create unique messages for multiple channels and platforms to resonate with customers. This called for a critical assessment when defining awards categories – Kyoorius Advertising Awards are comprehensive, and structured to recognise individual components as well as entire ad campaigns.
The overarching structure of the Kyoorius Awards is to only award work that is worthy of merit. No matter how big the brand, or how small the names behind it; how wide the media reach is or the number of retweets; the ultimate goal is to create outstanding work that works.
Merit involves beating your own best work and setting new benchmarks for creative excellence. This is why Kyoorius Awards have no winning tier structure – no gold, silver or bronze, and it is the jury’s prerogative to award one or multiple Blue Elephants in any one category, whereas none in another, if entries are not up to the mark.
For the Advertising Awards, international jury members include Rosie Arnold – Deputy Executive Creative Director, BBH, as Jury Foreman, accompanied by Graham Kelly – Regional Executive Creative Director, Isobar, and Woon Siew Hoh – Regional Creative Director, Hakuhudo. From India, jury members include Abhijit Avasthi – Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather, Agnello Dias – Chairman & Co-Founder, TapRoot India, Senthil Kumar – National Creative Director, JWT, and Sonal Dabral – Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather with more to be added soon.
Together with D&AD, Kyoorius has chosen this specific mix of the top international, regional, and Indian creative minds to ensure that work is compared against industry best practices, while keeping the Indian context in mind.
Further, Kyoorius and D&AD aim to create a truly neutral and ethical platform that recognises the best of the advertising industry solely on the basis of merit. Unlike any other advertising awards, all jury members gather in India to review, discuss and elect the best of the best over an intensive three-day session. All voting is private, never by a show of hands.
Kyoorius Advertising Awards are unlike any other advertising awards in India, not only because of the rigorous judging standards, but also because entry fees are fed back into the industry. Funds are used in developing Kyoorius FYIdays, an initiative aimed at stimulating creative professionals and educating students – India’s future creative superstars.
Call for entries open 20th March and close on 21st April 2014. Visit awards.kyoorius.com for more information.
Brands
GUEST COLUMN: Beyond layoffs, India emerges as creative-tech hub
Shift in hiring and AI-led workflows is reshaping global media and marketing
MUMBAI:The global narrative around layoffs in media and technology may suggest contraction, but a deeper transformation is reshaping how creative and tech capabilities are built and deployed. For Sanjil Zaveri, general manager – India at Brandtech+, this shift is less about decline and more about redistribution, one that is positioning India at the centre of a new global operating model. In this piece, Zaveri explores how integrated workflows, AI-powered production, and evolving talent demands are redefining the creative-tech ecosystem, why India is emerging as a strategic hub for global content and innovation, and what this means for the future of media, marketing, and talent.
The global headlines around layoffs in technology and media continue to dominate industry conversations. From platform restructuring to reduced marketing spends, the narrative suggests a slowdown across the creative and digital ecosystem.
But beneath these headlines, a different shift is underway, one that is quietly redefining how creative and technology work is delivered globally.
Hiring is not disappearing; it is being redistributed. And India is increasingly at the centre of this transition.
A structural shift in the creative-tech ecosystem
The media and marketing landscape is undergoing a fundamental reset. Brands today are moving away from fragmented agency models and siloed teams toward more integrated, agile structures.
Creative, technology, and media are no longer operating in isolation. Campaigns are now built through connected workflows, where ideation, production, and optimisation happen simultaneously.
This shift is forcing organisations to rethink where and how teams are built. Increasingly, the focus is on capability, speed, and scalability, rather than geography alone.
India’s emergence as a creative-tech hub
India’s role in this evolving ecosystem has expanded significantly.
Traditionally positioned as a backend execution market, India is now playing a far more central role in global campaign delivery. Teams based here contribute not just to production, but also to strategy, content development, and performance optimisation.
This is particularly relevant in a market where content velocity has increased dramatically. With the rise of digital platforms, OTT, and always-on marketing, brands require high volumes of creative assets without compromising on quality.
Industry insights from Ernst & Young point to India’s growing strength as a global content hub, while NASSCOM continues to highlight the scale and depth of the country’s digital talent pool. Together, these factors create a compelling case for India as a foundation for more efficient, integrated content ecosystems serving global markets.
A global company’s perspective on India
At Brandtech+, this shift is already shaping how we operate.
As a global organisation working across creative, marketing, and technology, our talent strategy is increasingly driven by capability rather than location. India has therefore become a key market for both scale and strategic talent.
In the first quarter of this year, we have significantly accelerated hiring in India across creative, technology, and operations roles, moving well ahead of plan and continuing to build strong momentum. We are actively hiring across multiple functions, with India playing a central role in delivering integrated creativetech solutions for global brands.
These signals reflect a broader change in how global companies view India, not as a delivery centre, but as a hub for connected creative, data, and technology capabilities.
“While much of the global narrative is centred on contraction, what we are seeing in India is a different kind of growth,” says Sanjil Zaveri. “As a global company, we are investing in talent that can work across creative, data, and technology, because that is where the future of marketing is headed.”
AI and the new content economy
Artificial intelligence is playing a critical role in enabling this transformation.
In today’s media environment, the demand for content has scaled exponentially. Brands are expected to create, adapt, and optimise creative assets across multiple platforms in real time. The scale of this demand would be difficult to sustain through traditional production models alone.
AI is helping make this possible.
Rather than replacing roles, AI is streamlining workflows, automating repetitive tasks, accelerating production timelines, and enabling faster experimentation. This allows creative and strategy teams to focus on higher-value outputs.
“AI removes the mundane and elevates the meaningful,” says Zaveri. “It allows teams to focus on ideas and storytelling, while technology drives efficiency.”
For media platforms and advertisers, this is redefining how campaigns are built, moving from linear production cycles to continuous, data-driven content creation.
What this means for media talent
For professionals across media, advertising, and digital, this shift is redefining skill requirements.
The traditional boundaries between creative, media planning, and technology are blurring. Content creators are expected to understand performance metrics. Media professionals are working more closely with data, platforms, and automation. Collaboration across disciplines is becoming a core skill.
This is creating demand for hybrid talent, professionals who can operate across disciplines and adapt to rapidly changing workflows.
India’s talent ecosystem is particularly well suited to this environment. With strong capabilities across content, design, engineering, and analytics, the market offers a unique combination of scale and versatility.
Importantly, global exposure is no longer tied to relocation. Professionals in India are increasingly working on international brands and campaigns, collaborating with teams across markets in real time.
Looking ahead: India at the centre of the reset
What we are witnessing today is not a temporary phase; it is a structural reset in the global creative-tech ecosystem.
Layoffs may continue to shape short-term narratives, but they do not capture where long-term growth is being built. That growth lies in new operating models, integrated workflows, and markets that can deliver both scale and innovation.
India is firmly at the centre of this transformation.
As global media and marketing organisations continue to evolve, India’s role will only become more critical, not as a support market, but as a strategic hub for content, creativity, and technology-led innovation.
The future of creative-tech will be defined by collaboration, speed, and adaptability. And increasingly, it will be shaped from India.
Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect our own.
