2026: The Year Of...: Accountability and media reset, not media excess, says Navin Khemka of WPP Media
Navin Khemka, President – Client Solutions, WPP Media South Asia on why regulation, retail media, AI governance, and consumer pullback will redefine how brands plan, buy, and justify media in the year ahead.
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After years of relentless expansion, 2025 marked a moment of consolidation and quiet recalibration for India’s media and marketing ecosystem. Scale was no longer the sole marker of success. Instead, agencies and brands were forced to confront harder questions around effectiveness, accountability, and sustainability.
For WPP Media and EssenceMediacom, the year delivered strong business momentum, but it also reinforced a deeper truth: growth without structural clarity is no longer enough.
Navin Khemka, president – client solutions, WPP Media South Asia, describes 2025 as a milestone year that combined market leadership with organisational transformation. EssenceMediacom closed the year as the No. 1 agency on new business, winning some of the country’s most competitive mandates, while WPP Media crossed the 50% market share mark—up sharply from 41% just five years ago. Yet behind these numbers was a deliberate shift toward simplification, technology-first thinking, and client-centric operating models, anchored by the global rollout of WPP Open.
As the industry looks ahead, Khemka believes 2026 will not reward unchecked experimentation or blind optimism. Instead, it will test discipline. With retail media headed toward regulation, cricket media rights due for a reset, Connected TV growth likely to stabilise, and consumers increasingly conscious of value and screen time brands will have to justify every media decision.
In this next phase, success will belong not to those who spend the most, but to those who plan smarter, deploy AI responsibly, and build strategies resilient enough to stand up to scrutiny from both consumers and the boardroom.
Edited excerpts:
What were the key achievements for you and your teams in 2025?
2025 has been a milestone year across both WPP Media and EssenceMediacom. At an EssenceMediacom level, we continued to grow ahead of industry pace and closed the year as the No. 1 agency on New Business, winning some of the largest and most competitive mandates including GCPL and Hero MotoCorp. This momentum has firmly positioned us among the top three agencies in India.
At a WPP Media level, we crossed a significant industry benchmark by surpassing 50% market share, up from 41% just five years ago. This scale and leadership were strengthened by the rollout of a simplified, client-focused, technology-first structure, led by the global launch of WPP Open, which is transforming how we partner with brands.
What defining trends stood out for you in 2025?
Several shifts shaped the marketing and media landscape in 2025. From a brand and business perspective, we saw a stronger push toward purpose-driven communication, authenticity, long-term brand equity creation, and deeper localisation. In marketing, AI adoption accelerated across creative, planning and operational workflows, video continued to dominate consumption, macro and nano influencers played a bigger role, and first-party data and retail media strategies became sharper and more integrated with commerce.
In media, blended cross-screen planning gained traction, OOH saw renewed innovation, and India’s rapid digitisation reshaped consumption patterns across markets. On the consumer front, value consciousness intensified, making ROI a critical factor in purchase decisions and brand affinity.
How did the rise of AI and generative AI impact the industry this year?
AI and especially generative AI had a transformative impact on the industry in 2025. The global launch of WPP Open, our AI-enabled marketing platform, has been a key driver of this change by unifying people, tools, data and intelligence into a single ecosystem. It has significantly improved efficiency by reducing strategy, content and creative development timelines from weeks to hours. It has also enabled unprecedented scale, empowering brands to create high-volume, multi-format content tailored for diverse markets and channels. Importantly, it has enhanced marketing effectiveness, driving improvements in metrics such as cost per acquisition, purchase intent and incremental revenue.
With enterprise-grade safety, compliance and governance built in, WPP Open ensures responsible and brand-safe AI deployment, making it the simplest, safest and fastest way for brands to adopt AI across their marketing journeys.
What disruptive trends will take the spotlight in 2026?
Several forces are expected to disrupt the industry in 2026. Retail media is likely to see increased regulation, particularly within the fast-growing quick commerce ecosystem. We also anticipate a reset in cricket media rights and bidding dynamics, which will significantly influence the sports marketing landscape.
Additionally, growth in Connected TV is expected to stabilise or slow down, with traditional media retaining more resilience than predicted. On the consumer side, digital detox behaviours will continue to gain momentum as people consciously rebalance their time online and offline.
What is your New Year’s resolution on a professional and personal front?
Professionally, my resolution is to remain open to change and continue adapting to the new ways of working shaping our industry. The pace at which technology, media and consumer behaviour are evolving is unprecedented, and agility will be a defining strength. Personally, I aim to prioritise taking regular time off to disconnect and recharge. Maintaining mental and physical wellbeing is essential for sustaining productivity and long-term balance.
