Media must create value without interrupting: Harsha Razdan, CEO-South Asia, dentsu

Dentsu leaders on Monday said India’s digital advertising ecosystem has crossed a decisive inflection point, moving beyond scale to focus on trust, attention and cultural impact, as the company unveiled the 10th edition of the dentsu–e4m Digital Advertising Report 2026 in Mumbai.

Speaking at the launch, Harsha Razdan, CEO-South Asia, dentsu, reflected on how the industry has evolved over the past decade, noting that while digital advertising was once a peripheral conversation, it is now central to business, media and communication strategies. He said attention, once easy to capture, has become highly fragmented, fundamentally altering how media and advertising operate.

Razdan pointed out that media is no longer just about reach and advertising is no longer limited to delivering messages. Growth, he said, is no longer driven only by scale. He underlined that the consistent theme across the past ten editions of the report has been the role of trust in building enduring brands, adding that brands which fail to inspire trust struggle to sustain long-term growth.

He also outlined Dentsu’s evolving philosophy around “innovating with impact”, where impact extends beyond business outcomes to include social good and cultural influence. According to Razdan, effective media today is about creating value without interruption, and creativity must increasingly focus on solving real problems rather than merely amplifying messages. He said the next ten years will be fundamentally different from the last, and success will depend not just on building tools but on using them meaningfully.

Abheek Biswas, Vice President, Consumer Insights, Dentsu, said the 10th edition of the report marks a natural moment to step back and assess the forces that will shape the next decade of Indian media and advertising. He noted that India’s advertising industry has grown into a resilient, high-momentum sector worth ₹1.2 lakh crore, more than double its size a decade ago.

However, Biswas stressed that scale alone does not define the industry’s transformation. Advertising in India, he said, has evolved into a cultural and economic force that actively shapes aspirations, behaviours and belief systems. Digital advertising, in particular, has grown twelve-fold over the last decade to around ₹72,000 crore, with its share of overall ad spends increasing five-fold.

Biswas said digital has crossed a “psychological threshold” and is no longer just a channel or format, but the default state of media. The rise of retail media, online video and creator ecosystems, he added, signals maturity rather than experimentation. As a result, the next decade will be defined by better media rather than more media.

Highlighting structural shifts underway, Biswas said the industry is moving from reach to attention, targeting to trust, personalisation to empathy, and platforms to ecosystems. He framed the next decade as unfolding across three broad acts: how media creates value, builds meaning and governs itself.

According to him, growth will increasingly come from the convergence of commerce, content and brands, with integration replacing interruption. Creative storytelling will be driven by demographic shifts, regional voices, women-led narratives and Gen Z expectations, while purpose-led communication will move from statements to participation.

On governance, Biswas said trust will define omnichannel businesses, with consistency, transparency and consent becoming non-negotiable. As artificial intelligence moves from optimisation to decision-making at scale, media will become more autonomous, experiential and immersive. He added that India is uniquely positioned to lead a human-centric, ethical media ecosystem, supported by its digital public infrastructure, AI capabilities and cultural depth.

Summing up the outlook for the next decade, Biswas said attention will be the new currency, trust the new scale, and culture India’s greatest global advantage, with media playing a defining role in shaping how India sees the world and how it is perceived globally.