When creativity never clocks out: Advertising and the ‘Right to Disconnect’ Bill

In early 2025, Harish Venkatesh, founder and CEO of strategic brand design agency Become, posted a stark reflection on LinkedIn after interviewing agency professionals. “The environment is toxic. I’m working 12 hours daily. I’m beyond burnout now. Three months of salary is due. No promotion for two years,” he wrote, adding that these accounts were coming not from startups, but from established agencies with marquee clients and awards on their walls.

The post struck a nerve because it echoed what the industry has been quietly acknowledging for years.

Back in 2022, Storyboard18 had reported on how poor practices across digital marketing firms were fuelling post-pandemic burnout and high attrition. One episode that went viral involved Glassdoor responses from a digital agency to employee complaints. Among them: “Working on weekends—if you deny, your salary will be deducted,” and “This is not a 9-to-5 government job… when one is building brands, time is secondary.” The responses were later deleted, but the sentiment lingered.

Three years later, the issue was returned to Parliament. In December 2025, NCP MP Supriya Sule reintroduced the ‘Right to Disconnect’ Bill, first proposed in 2019. The Bill seeks to give employees a legal right to disengage from work-related calls, emails and messages outside official working hours, without facing adverse consequences. It also mandates companies to define after-hours communication policies, set up Employee Welfare Committees, compensate after-hours work, and penalise violations.

Similar rights already exist in countries like France, Italy and Portugal. In India’s digital-first, always-online economy, the question is no longer whether burnout exists, but whether legislation can realistically address it—especially in advertising.

A creative business that doesn’t run on clocks

KV Sridhar, global chief creative officer at Nihilent Limited and Hypercollective, is sceptical about how much the Bill can change advertising.

“Morally, it’s the right idea. Practically, it will change very little in advertising,” he says. “This may work in technology, manufacturing or operational roles. But advertising is a service business driven by responsibility and ideas. If a presentation is on Monday and the idea isn’t ready on Friday, people will work the weekend. You cannot switch off creative responsibility.”

Read More: Right to Disconnect: Why India’s workplaces and economy struggle with a European work-life rule

Sridhar argues that creative work has never followed office hours. “You can sit from 9 to 5 and get nothing, and suddenly an idea strikes when you’re outside. Planning and creative people carry ideas all the time. That boundary has never really existed.”

He also points to how the business itself has changed. “In the 70s, 80s and even the 90s, brands did one or two big campaigns a year. Now communication refreshes every few weeks, sometimes every few days. On social media, you publish multiple times a week.”

That velocity, he says, has collided with shrinking retainers. “Agencies are paid very little. They can’t afford enough people. So instead of selling one person’s time once, they sell it three or four times. That’s why people work 12 to 16 hours a day.”

In his view, the problem is not technological but economic. “Brands may spend hundreds of crores on media but hesitate to spend a few lakhs on producing good content. That imbalance puts enormous pressure on agencies.”

Digital agencies and the burnout pipeline

Sridhar also draws a distinction between traditional and digital agencies. “Mainline agencies, at least in principle, still value ideas and craft. Digital agencies operate under far greater commercial pressure. Revenues are low, competition is extreme, and talent is undervalued.”

He adds, “Most digital agencies hire very young people because they are cheap. Middle layers of mentors are missing. Unpaid interns are common. Young people are overworked, underpaid and burnt out, with little career structure.”

From his perspective, operational and mechanical roles can follow structured disconnection rules. Creative and responsibility-driven roles cannot. “You cannot say, ‘this is thinking time and this is not.’ That’s why agencies have never successfully implemented time sheets for creative talent.”

A necessary disruption?

Prathap Suthan, managing partner and chief creative officer at BangInTheMiddle, takes a sharper view. “Clients often play lord of the manor. They pay, so agencies are servants. This attitude trickles down. Impossible turnarounds become routine. Late nights and weekends are sacrificed without a second thought.”

He believes the Bill challenges that dynamic at the root. “It creates boundaries. It forces better planning. Without it, voluntary change stalls. Commoditised pitches continue. With it, advertising can reclaim something real—talent stays, ideas sharpen, output becomes premium again.”

Suthan warns that AI may actually intensify the problem. “It handles grunt work, so clients demand more. Endless iterations. Superhuman output. Bargain prices.” What agencies experience as crunch moments, he says, have become pathological. “Each client thinks they’ve asked for just one weekend. For agencies, every weekend is gone.”

The ‘velocity paradox’

Industry observers describe this as a “velocity paradox”—tools that save time haven’t given professionals more rest, only more volume. Social platforms demand constant reactions. Instead of one big idea, teams now create dozens of versions for different algorithms, multiplying cognitive load.

Some agencies have introduced resource management software, “no-meeting Fridays” or deep-work blocks. But these are often overridden the moment a client crisis arises.

If passed seriously, proponents argue, the Bill could trigger a contractual reset. Agencies could legally define after-hours requests as chargeable or non-mandatory. Talent could gain psychological safety to switch off—something many say is impossible today.

What changes—and what doesn’t

Supporters point to potential benefits: higher retention, better creative output, more disciplined client behaviour. The downsides include friction with global clients across time zones and the risk of unofficial pressure to remain available.

Krishna Iyer, business head at Lintas Live and director of marketing at MullenLowe Lintas Group, notes that COVID permanently blurred work-life boundaries. “Slack, email and WhatsApp became perpetual workstreams. Burnout globally is estimated at 48%; in India it’s closer to 58–62%, with creative industries among the worst affected.”

“Advertising’s always-on culture is systemic,” he says. “It stems from real-time optimisation, weak labour protections, and artificial urgency. The Bill offers long-needed guardrails: defined emergency protocols, the right to ignore after-hours communication, and overtime compensation.”

As per veteran ad man Chitto Ghosh, in the pre-digital era, pressure was intense, but it was cyclical—followed by downtime and recovery. Today, that rhythm has disappeared. The grind is constant, incentives fewer, and empathy thinner.

Can law fix a cultural problem?

Even Sridhar concedes that clerical, finance, HR and operational roles would clearly benefit from the Bill. But for creative leadership and idea-driven roles, he believes the solution lies deeper.

“Reform is possible without legislation—but only if clients start valuing talent and ideas again. Advertising has always functioned like an emergency service. Deadlines are real. Responsibility is real. Thinking never fully switches off.”

What must change, he says, is not passion but exploitation. “If teams work intensely for a few days, agencies must ensure real breaks after. When talent is respected, paid well and given recovery time, the industry becomes demanding but healthy. Without that, no law can fix it.”