The pitch-less route: Indian brands and direct agency appointments

The multi-agency pitch has long been the ritual that decides who shapes a brand's voice. Briefs are circulated, chemistry meetings are scheduled, agencies burn weeks of unpaid ideation and a winner emerges after a round of competitive scrutiny.

Yet a growing set of marketers are skipping the beauty parade altogether and handing the mandate straight to the agency they have already made up their minds about. The practice has now landed in the middle of a very public spat between two of the world's biggest holding companies.

The flashpoint was WPP's third-quarter earnings call on October 29, where Chief Executive Cindy Rose was asked about large accounts changing hands without a formal review. The line of questioning came on the back of WPP's decision to sit out Coca-Cola's North American media review. Rose, who did not name any rival, referred to the trend as the “pitch-less, CEO handshake thing”.

Publicis Groupe, the Paris-headquartered holding company that has itself won accounts outside the traditional pitch route, responded with an open letter to Rose on its official Instagram account. “Although it might make for a good headline, claiming we win on a ‘CEO handshake’ is an insult to clients’ intelligence,” the letter read.

The exchange may be a boardroom story, but the underlying question is far from alien to Indian adland. Brands here have long reserved the right to back their instincts, and the last decade shows direct appointments cutting across categories, from skincare and hair colour to furniture, dental care and cement.

Seven appointments, no beauty parade

The earliest entries on this ledger date back to 2016, when Hygienic Research Institute, the company behind hair colour brand Vasmol, handed its strategic and creative communication mandate to Soho Square without a pitch. The company pointed to the agency's Ogilvy legacy and its strategic capabilities as important considerations.

The same year, Franke Faber India, the kitchen appliances company, appointed Soho Square as its strategic brand-building and creative communications partner, again without a competitive pitch. That win followed the Vasmol assignment and widened the agency's portfolio of consumer brands, a reminder that one direct appointment can set up the next.

Four years later, USV-Sebamed, the business behind skincare brand Sebamed in India, appointed The Womb to handle strategy and creative responsibilities with no conventional multi-agency pitch. The brief was far from small. The agency was entrusted with building a new strategic platform and communication for Sebamed's entire product portfolio, and the brand cited The Womb's understanding of challenger brands and its approach to behavioural change as the reasons behind the call.

In 2023, dental chain Clove Dental brought on Wieden+Kennedy India, the Indian arm of the global independent agency, as its creative agency across key business verticals, again without a pitch. The agency was tasked with using creative interventions to support business growth across the Clove ecosystem, and the appointment landed as the chain geared up for its next phase of expansion.

The Womb returned to the list in 2024, when Nilkamal, the plastic furniture and storage major, appointed it as creative partner to lead brand communications across platforms and business verticals without a pitch. The company's joint managing director highlighted the agency's brand-centric approach and creative capabilities as reasons for the partnership.

The same year, chai brand Tea India appointed London-based creative agency Quiet Storm without a pitch as it prepared to take the brand into its next phase of growth. The first assignment was a brand awareness campaign for the Masala Chai range, beginning with a regional campaign in Birmingham across outdoor and digital channels.

The most recent entry is also the loudest. This year, The Womb was appointed brand strategy and creative agency on record for Wonder Cement without participating in a formal pitch, with a remit covering integrated creative strategy and communications across channels. The partnership's first major output was a multi-film campaign featuring Ranbir Kapoor during IPL 2026, proof that a pitch-less appointment can travel from boardroom to tentpole property in short order.

Different roads to the same room

What stands out is that no two of these appointments travelled the same road. For the Hygienic Research Institute, the logic was pedigree and strategic muscle, with the Ogilvy legacy doing much of the talking. For USV-Sebamed, it was a specific skill, namely reading challenger brands and nudging behaviour.

Nilkamal leaned on a brand-centric approach and creative capability, while Clove's decision was tied to a growth moment, with creative interventions expected to carry business outcomes across a sprawling ecosystem. Even the Franke Faber appointment was in effect a vote of confidence built on a recent win.

The Womb's three appearances across 2020, 2024 and 2026, spanning skincare, furniture and cement, hint at a different currency altogether: a body of work that travels across categories. Soho Square's back to back wins in 2016 show how a single credible assignment can become the case study that opens the next conversation. Quiet Storm's Tea India win shows the route is not confined to India or to legacy marketers, since a challenger in the specialist tea category found a creative partner it believed in without staging a contest.

Relationships with brand leadership are part of the mix too, though in the cases above the stated rationale rests on capability, reputation and track record.

Rose's unease is not unreasonable on its face. A pitch forces agencies to show their thinking in competition, whereas a direct appointment asks the brand to do that diligence itself through past work, references and conversations.

The Indian examples suggest that some marketers are willing to take on that responsibility.

When the search ends before the brief goes out

Taken together, these seven appointments make a case for the direct mandate as a considered alternative to the traditional pitch rather than a shortcut. The mandates handed over were hardly trivial.

They included the strategic platform for an entire product portfolio, the overall communication for established brands, ecosystem-wide creative across business verticals and integrated communications across channels. For a brand that is convinced it has already found the right partner, weeks of speculative work can feel like time spent confirming what it already knows.

The pitch is not going anywhere, and the Rose and Publicis exchange is a reminder that holding companies will keep arguing over which route is more robust. For brands, the question is simpler: is the confidence in an agency earned through work they have actually seen?

From Soho Square a decade ago to The Womb this year, the agencies that keep landing such calls appear to have been the answer in the client's mind long before a brief was written.