Where did creativity go? How Indian advertising became a two-city industry

There was a time when the Indian advertising industry had a much wider geographical footprint. Almost every major city had a branch of one of the large advertising networks. Mumbai was the undisputed headquarters of the industry, but Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and several other cities had their own agency offices, creative teams and strong client relationships. Kolkata even had the distinction of being the headquarters of Clarion. These were not just branch offices; they were part of the fabric of the local business community.

Today, that map has changed dramatically. Several large agencies have either exited markets such as Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad or substantially reduced their presence. What remains is a growing pool of independent and regional agencies, many led by professionals who themselves spent years inside the large network agencies. Meanwhile, Mumbai and Bengaluru have emerged as the industry's dominant creative centres. So, what happened? Did creativity leave these cities—or did the opportunity to exercise it?

The Talent Did Not Leave First. The Opportunity Did.

It would be easy to conclude that the creative talent disappeared from India's regional markets. The reality is more complicated. Talent tends to follow opportunity, and the biggest opportunities have increasingly moved to Mumbai and Bengaluru. Mumbai has the advantage of decades of accumulated advertising, media, entertainment and production talent. Bengaluru has built a powerful ecosystem around technology, digital businesses, start-ups and new-age brands. Once talent, clients and agencies begin clustering in one place, the ecosystem feeds itself.

A young creative professional looking at a career today is naturally going to ask where the biggest brands are, where the most interesting briefs are and where the strongest creative leaders are working. Increasingly, the answer is Mumbai or Bengaluru. And when the best young talent leaves, the regional ecosystem becomes weaker, creating a cycle that is difficult to reverse.

When the Client Moves, the Agency Follows

The client has moved too. Large companies have increasingly centralised their marketing and brand decision-making in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR. When the decision-makers move, agencies naturally follow.

A Chennai office may continue to maintain an important client relationship, but the larger creative mandate can increasingly be handled from Mumbai or Bengaluru. That is why it is no longer unusual for brands with deep roots in a particular city to look elsewhere for their creative work. The Hindu, for instance, is a brand deeply associated with Chennai, yet the changing geography of creative talent means that Mumbai and Bengaluru can increasingly become part of the creative equation.

MRF offers another interesting example. Chennai remains central to the company, while Lowe continues to have a relationship with the brand. The point is not that regional agencies or offices have become irrelevant. It is that the nature of the relationship between brands and agencies is changing.

The uncomfortable question is whether brands are moving because they believe the creative work is better elsewhere—or because that is simply where the talent and creative ecosystem now reside.

Is Mumbai Really More Creative Than Chennai?

This is perhaps the question the industry should confront honestly. Are Mumbai and Bengaluru actually producing better creative work?

It would be simplistic to say they have better creative people. Great creative talent can come from anywhere. But creativity does not operate in isolation. It thrives on the ecosystem around it—the strategist, planner, filmmaker, photographer, production house, digital expert, technology partner and, most importantly, other creative people who challenge and inspire one another.

Mumbai and Bengaluru offer that density of talent and opportunity in a way that many regional markets no longer do. The advantage, therefore, may not be that the creative person in Mumbai is inherently better than the one in Chennai. It may simply be that the Mumbai or Bengaluru creative is operating in an environment that gives the idea more opportunities to become bigger, sharper and better executed.

Technology Has Killed Distance. Has It Also Killed Proximity?

Technology has made this geographical shift easier. A client in Chennai can work with an agency in Mumbai without the need for frequent travel. Briefs can be shared instantly, presentations can happen on Zoom and creative work can be reviewed from anywhere. Geography, which was once a genuine barrier, has become almost irrelevant.

But advertising has always been a people business. Some of the strongest client-agency relationships were built through proximity—the spontaneous meeting, the coffee, the lunch, the conversation after the formal presentation, the account person who understood a client's concern without being told.

That chemistry is difficult to reproduce virtually. Technology may have made collaboration easier, but it may also have removed some of the intimacy that historically helped produce better advertising.

What Happens When Local Understanding Becomes a Research Exercise?

There is another dimension to the decline of regional agency ecosystems: local understanding.

An agency based in Chennai, Kolkata or Hyderabad lives in the market it is trying to understand. It knows the culture, humour, language and consumer behaviour instinctively. A national agency can certainly acquire that knowledge through research and local teams, but there is a difference between studying a market and living in it.

The danger is that as advertising becomes more centralised, India could lose some of the creative diversity that comes from having different markets produce ideas from within their own cultural context. The country may be one market commercially, but it is certainly not one market culturally.

The Regional Agency May Have the Last Word

There is, however, another side to this story. Many of the independent agencies that have emerged in Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad are being run by professionals who once worked for the very network agencies that have reduced their presence. They understand the discipline of a large agency but can offer something increasingly valuable—proximity, entrepreneurial attention and local knowledge.

The question is whether they can attract the next generation of creative talent and create work ambitious enough to compete beyond their home markets. If they can, the regional agency may not be the dying remnant of an old advertising industry. It could become the next source of creative disruption.

Advertising May Be Concentrated. Creativity Does Not Have to Be.

The concentration of advertising in Mumbai and Bengaluru is ultimately a reflection of how India's economy has evolved. Businesses, talent, technology and decision-making have become concentrated in particular urban centres.

But creativity has never respected geography.

The real loss, therefore, is not simply the disappearance of agency offices from smaller markets. It is the possibility that India could lose the creative diversity that comes from having multiple advertising cultures rather than one dominant creative culture.

Mumbai will remain Mumbai. Bengaluru will continue to grow. There is nothing wrong with that. But if the advertising industry becomes increasingly dependent on two cities for its ideas, it risks becoming disconnected from the very diversity that makes India such a fascinating market to advertise to.

Perhaps the real question is not “Where did the creativity go?”

It is this: Did we move the creativity to where the industry is—or did we move the industry away from where creativity could have continued to grow?