AD Agencies
WPP to group Ogilvy, VML and AKQA under one creative banner
New WPP Creative unit aims to simplify structure and speed up AI push
LONDON: WPP is preparing to place its three flagship creative agencies, Ogilvy, VML and AKQA, under a single umbrella called WPP Creative, as part of a wider effort to simplify its structure and respond to rising pressure from artificial intelligence.
According to a Financial Times report, the British advertising giant plans to keep the individual agency brands intact while bringing them together under one banner. The move is designed to make it easier for clients to access integrated creative services without navigating multiple legacy networks.
The proposals are still being finalised and could change, the report noted.
WPP Creative will function as a holding structure, sitting alongside WPP Media, which houses GroupM, and WPP Production, the unit built around Hogarth. Rather than forcing full mergers, the company is expected to let Ogilvy, VML and AKQA retain their names and day-to-day operations, while sharing strategy, resources and technology behind the scenes.
The shift is also tied to a broader push into artificial intelligence. Executives are expected to outline plans to increase investment in internal AI tools as competition intensifies from technology companies offering automated creative and marketing services.
The restructuring marks one of the first major moves under WPP’s new chief executive, Cindy Rose, who took charge in late 2025. Her brief is clear: trim complexity, speed up decision-making and present a single, sharper creative face to clients.
For marketers, the promise is simple. Instead of three doors, there will be one entrance to the combined creative muscle of WPP. For the company, the bet is that fewer silos and more shared tech will translate into lower costs, tighter margins and a structure fit for an AI-shaped future.
AD Agencies
Kevin Vaz opens FICCI-EY report with a declaration: India’s M&E industry set to breach Rs 3 trillion mark by 2027
In a keynote address at the FICCI-EY report launch, Kevin Vaz says sport, AI and the connected TV boom are driving a multi-screen revolution with no signs of slowing
MUMBAI: India’s media and entertainment industry is growing faster than the economy, reshaping global benchmarks and is on course to blow past Rs 3 trillion by 2027. That was the headline message from Kevin Vaz, chairman of the FICCI Media and Entertainment Committee and chief executive of entertainment at JioStar, who delivered the opening keynote at the launch of the FICCI-EY Media and Entertainment Report 2026 in Mumbai on Monday. He did not waste much time on caveats.
The industry hit Rs 2.78 trillion in 2025, outpacing GDP per capita growth and surpassing even last year’s bullish forecasts. Vaz described the year in three words: scale, convergence, transformation. The numbers, he suggested, were only half the story. The other half was how that growth was happening.
Digital has become the industry’s largest segment, driven by advertising, subscriptions and commerce. But Vaz was quick to puncture the familiar narrative of digital killing everything else. India, he argued, is not an either-or market. It is an AND market. Connected TV is surging. Linear television, mobile, films and print are all still expanding. AVGC, the animation, visual effects, gaming and comics sector, is emerging as a serious growth engine, opening new storytelling formats and new global revenue streams. Nothing, he said, is replacing anything. Everything is reinforcing everything else.
Nowhere is that more vivid than in sport. In an on-demand world where audiences can watch anything, anytime, Indians still show up live. “Sports don’t fragment audiences,” Vaz said. “They unite them, just on different screens.” The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 made the point emphatically. During the final, JioHotstar delivered 72.5 million concurrent streams, a global record. Group chats exploded. Families renegotiated control of the television. Advertisers, Vaz noted with undisguised relish, stopped asking where audiences were and started asking how fast they could get in.
Cinema had its own landmark year. More than 1,900 films were released, with several crossing the Rs 1 billion mark. Dhurandhar was singled out as proof that Indian audiences will still turn up in large numbers for content that grips them. Live experiences, too, are getting bigger and more immersive, though Vaz suggested the surface has barely been scratched.
Then there is artificial intelligence, which he described as quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, reshaping everything. AI is enabling personalisation, efficiency and scale, but Vaz argued its deeper significance lies in what it is doing to creativity itself. He pointed to Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh, billed as the world’s first AI-produced show, as evidence that the technology can amplify creative ambition rather than hollow it out. He also used the platform to call on Indian policymakers to engage seriously with the creative industry on AI and copyright, ensuring that creators are fairly compensated as the technology spreads.
The picture that emerges from the report, and from Vaz’s keynote, is of an industry that has stopped thinking of itself as a fast-growing emerging market and started thinking of itself as a global template. Scale, diversity and innovation, he said, are no longer in tension in India. They are coexisting, and the rest of the world is taking notes.
The Rs 3 trillion milestone is two years away. As the man who chairs the committee that shapes the industry’s policy agenda and runs the country’s most powerful entertainment platform, Vaz set the tone for the day with characteristic directness: India’s media business is not just chasing growth. It is deciding what the country talks about at dinner. That is a different kind of power altogether.
