As media spending trends continue to evolve and reshape the advertising landscape, Ashwin Padmanabhan, COO for South Asia at GroupM, underscored the rising role of AI in campaign execution, content creation, real-time consumer tracking, and communication optimisation, stressing that the industry’s focus has moved beyond standardisation to equally embrace personalisation, with AI now being harnessed to craft content tailored for specific audiences.
In an interview with Marketing Mind, while talking about the emerging trends in media spending that are poised to shape the advertising landscape going forward, and how brands should gear up to leverage them, he highlighted two major shifts.
First, Padmanabhan pointed to the growing influence of AI in campaign execution, content creation, real-time consumer tracking, and communication optimisation. He emphasised that it’s not just about standardisation anymore, the focus is now equally on personalisation, using AI to tailor content for specific audiences. This dual approach of standardising and personalising is a key trend driving marketing and advertising today.
“The second major trend is the rapid rise of commerce and retail media. This shift is unlocking highly actionable data and real-time insights into consumer behavior, what they’re shopping, what they’re buying, and what’s triggering those actions. Retail media has been growing at 40% CAGR since 2019, now accounting for nearly 13.2% of all advertising spend,” he said.
“So clearly, the way retail media will shape the advertising landscape and the digital landscape is something that advertisers need to get on to immediately if they haven’t already got on to it. While most advertisers have already tapped into it, the key now is figuring out how to integrate retail media seamlessly with the rest of their media spend, a challenge agencies like his are actively collaborating on with brands. These two are big shifts that are happening,” he added.
On being asked about recent media reports suggesting that only digital and out-of-home are expected to see positive growth until 2026, while traditional formats like TV, print, radio, and cinema are projected to decline, Padmanabhan offered a nuanced perspective. He emphasised that most mediums, even those outside digital, are still operating from a smaller base. With people stepping out more and the experiential space expanding, out-of-home is naturally poised for growth.
He further noted that print, too, is witnessing growth, especially driven by regional and vernacular markets. In fact, India remains one of the few countries where print continues to stay relevant and grow steadily.
“It’s not accurate to say traditional media as a whole is not growing. Actually, digital is also traditional, right?” he said, pointing out the diversity within the digital space. While some formats like retail media are new and evolving and may no longer be seen as traditional, many other digital formats function much like traditional media.
“So if you ask me, except for linear TV and radio, everything else is going on,” he added.
He also highlighted, “Look at TV as total TV, a combination of streaming, cable, and satellite, because that’s what the future of TV will be. The way broadcast content is distributed will ultimately define what TV becomes, and we’re already seeing this shift globally. Secondly, digital isn’t a single entity, it’s made up of many components, and within that, retail media is truly driving digital’s growth.”
When asked about the evolving balance between AI-generated content and human creativity in advertising, Padmanabhan highlighted the emerging role of Chief Prompt Officers as a crucial development. He explained that in order to derive compelling and groundbreaking outputs from AI, one must communicate with it effectively, and that responsibility lies with humans.
“The prompt is being done by the human,” he pointed out, emphasising that it’s the human who envisions a picture, creative concept, or story, and then prompts the AI to bring that vision to life. This means humans must be inherently creative. At one level, the human becomes the content producer; at another, AI uses those prompts to evolve and generate content that aligns with the human’s imagination.
“Simply using Gen AI isn’t enough. The effectiveness of AI-generated content depends on having creatively inclined individuals who can craft the right prompts- prompts that lead to results that surprise, delight, or even astound. So, marriage of two is critical,” he concluded, underlining the importance of synergy between human creativity and AI.
When asked about the implications of the Disney-Reliance merger on the advertising ecosystem, particularly in the context of sports broadcasting rights, Padmanabhan shared a hopeful outlook saying, “We actually have huge expectations. With the scale and backing of this new entity, we hope to see significant investment going into technology, the creation of better content, and a more holistic understanding of consumers. Importantly, we anticipate advancements in capturing consumer data and making advertiser spends more accountable. These are the very factors that have driven the growth of large digital platforms- making advertising more targetable and generating deeper consumer insights.”
He added that traditional broadcasters, both in India and globally, have lacked the technological capability and mindset to deliver on these fronts. But with JioStar, we see a powerful combination, an exceptional content creation engine joining forces with an entity that understands technology and has the deep pockets to invest in it. This makes it a unique opportunity to build a meaningful and relevant alternative.
