AD Agencies
Samir Shanbhag steps up as executive director at Saatchi & Saatchi India
MUMBAI: Saatchi & Saatchi India has strengthened its senior leadership bench with the elevation of Samir Shanbhag as executive director, effective January 2026. The move caps a steady rise at the agency, where Shanbhag has spent the last two-and-a-half years shaping business, clients and culture.
Shanbhag was most recently executive vice-president at Saatchi & Saatchi India, a role he held from August 2023 to December 2025. In his new position, he will play a wider leadership role across client partnerships, strategic direction and agency operations from Mumbai.
With a career spanning close to three decades, Shanbhag brings deep experience across markets and categories. Before joining Saatchi & Saatchi India, he was a founding leader at Rain Creative in Dubai, where he helped build the agency into a respected independent creative outfit. He spent nearly a decade there as director, overseeing operations, business development, profitability and strategic output, while also championing planning and integrated thinking in a young agency set-up.
Earlier, Shanbhag was business director at DDB Dubai, where he led the agency’s largest and most profitable business group. His portfolio included marquee brands such as PepsiCo, Emirates, Henkel and Abu Dhabi Media. In his final full year at DDB Dubai, the unit delivered annual revenues of $4 million, including 35 per cent year-on-year growth driven largely by organic expansion.
His career began in Mumbai in the mid-1990s, with stints at Ogilvy and Contract Advertising. At Contract, he was part of the founding team that built iContract Mumbai into one of India’s leading direct and digital marketing agencies within four years. Notably, he was also part of the team that won India’s first Gold Lion for Direct Marketing at Cannes in 2002 for the ICICI Children’s Growth Bond campaign.
A post-graduate in banking and finance from the University of Mumbai, Shanbhag entered advertising in 1995 and never looked back. Over the years, he has worked across categories ranging from snacks, beverages and dairy to banking, insurance, travel and logistics, combining strategic rigour with creative ambition.
Outside work, he is an avid reader, traveller, food explorer and cricket watcher, interests that mirror the curiosity and range he brings to his professional life.
With Shanbhag’s elevation, Saatchi & Saatchi India signals its intent to double down on seasoned leadership at a time when clients are demanding sharper thinking, deeper partnerships and business-led creativity. For Shanbhag, it is a homecoming of sorts, and for the agency, a clear bet on experience that knows how to turn ideas into impact, fast.
AD Agencies
AdTrust Summit 2026 to examine trust, AI and Gen Alpha in advertising
Two-day summit in Mumbai to explore ethics, regulation and the future of advertising trust
MUMBAI:Â At a time when advertising is navigating a delicate trust deficit, the Advertising Standards Council of India is preparing to bring the industry to the table. On 17 and 18 March, the body will host the inaugural AdTrust Summit 2026 in Mumbai, a two-day gathering designed to spark conversation around responsibility, regulation and credibility in modern advertising.
The summit, to be held at the Jio World Convention Centre in Bandra Kurla Complex, will bring together leaders from advertising, media, technology and policy to examine how brands can build trust in a marketplace increasingly shaped by algorithms, influencers and artificial intelligence.
In an age of deepfakes, dark patterns and blurred lines between content and commerce, the question is no longer just how brands capture attention, but whether audiences believe what they see. The AdTrust Summit aims to unpack that challenge.
Day one will turn its attention to the youngest digital natives. Titled Decoding Gen Alpha, the session will unveil ‘What the Sigma?’, a study by ASCI and Futurebrands Consulting that explores how children growing up in a hyper-digital environment encounter advertising and commercial messaging.
The report presentation will be delivered by Santosh Desai, founder and director at Think9 Consumer Technologies and a social commentator known for his insights into consumer behaviour. The discussion that follows will attempt to decode how Gen Alpha consumes media, interacts with brands and navigates the growing overlap between entertainment and marketing.
In a move that mirrors the subject itself, two Gen Alpha students will also join the conversation, offering a rare perspective from the generation advertisers are trying to understand.
The second panel of the day will shift the focus from observation to implication, asking what the report’s findings mean for brands, agencies and society. Speakers include Karthik Srinivasan, communications strategy consultant; Preeti Vyas, president at Mythik; and Abigail Dias, associate president planning at Ogilvy. The session will be moderated by Sonali Krishna, editor at ET Brand Equity.
Day two moves from insight to regulation. Under the theme From Compliance to Trust, ASCI will release its Ad Law Compendium, a comprehensive guide to India’s advertising regulations.
The day will open with a keynote by Sudhanshu Vats, chairman at ASCI and managing director at Pidilite Industries, followed by a chief guest address by Sanjay Jaju, secretary at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Legal experts from Khaitan & Co., including Haigreve Khaitan, senior partner, and Tanu Banerjee, partner, will present an overview of the current advertising law landscape in India and examine whether existing frameworks are equipped to deal with emerging technologies and formats.
Subsequent panels will explore issues increasingly shaping the industry’s ethical compass. Conversations will range from the limits of persuasive design and the rise of dark patterns, to the growing scrutiny brands face from digital creators and consumer watchdogs.
One session will also feature Revant Himatsingka, widely known online as the Food Pharmer, whose critiques of packaged food brands have sparked debate around transparency and corporate accountability.
Later discussions will turn toward media literacy among Gen Alpha, asking how children can be equipped to navigate a digital world where gaming, content and commerce are becoming indistinguishable.
The summit will conclude with a final panel on the future of advertising, bringing together voices from agencies, legal circles and technology platforms to discuss how innovation, intelligence and integrity can coexist.
For an industry built on persuasion, trust has always been its quiet currency. But as audiences grow more sceptical and digital ecosystems more complex, that currency is under pressure.
Events like the AdTrust Summit suggest the advertising world knows it cannot afford to take credibility for granted. The real challenge now is turning conversation into commitment.
