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DDB, FCB & MullenLowe Retired—Lintas Survives | Omnicom’s Troy Ruhanen: ‘Relevance > Legacy’ | CXO Moves: Aditya Birla Lifestyle & Reliance Retail
Storyboard18 brings you top five news updates from the world of advertising, marketing, and business of brands.
If TBWALintas can harness Lintas’s legacy clients, apply TBWA’s creative energy consistently, and avoid internal culture clashes, this could mark the beginning of a powerful hybrid agency, one that bridges the legacy of mass-brand India and the aspirations of modern, globalised India.
Storyboard18 presents FAST FIVE ⬇
We bring you top five news updates from the world of advertising, marketing, and business of brands.
DDB, FCB, MullenLowe Are Dead. Somehow, Lintas Lives
When Omnicom announced the retirement of DDB and MullenLowe as global brands, in the wake of its acquisition of IPG, most legacy names that once shaped modern advertising looked destined for the graveyard. Yet in India, one name lived on: Lintas, resurrected now as TBWA\Lintas, surviving even as MullenLowe globally shuts down.
Omnicom’s Troy Ruhanen defends retiring DDB, FCB & MullenLowe: ‘Relevance matters more than legacy’
Omnicom Advertising CEO Troy Ruhanen said the decision to consolidate the group’s creative networks to BBDO, TBWA and McCann became unavoidable once leadership examined where its agencies were strongest and most relevant to global clients. Speaking to The Drum on the day staff began learning the fate of their agencies and jobs, he said the rationalisation emerged quickly once the group compared Omnicom and IPG’s creative networks across major markets and client priorities.
Aditya Birla Lifestyle Brands’ Innerwear CEO Puneet Kumar Malik resigns, effective Jan 2026
Aditya Birla Lifestyle Brands on Tuesday announced that Puneet Kumar Malik, CEO of its Innerwear Business, has resigned.
In a stock exchange filing, the company stated: “Puneet Kumar Malik, Senior Management Personnel of the Company, has desired to relinquish his position with effect from the close of business hours on January 31, 2026, to pursue another opportunity within the Aditya Birla Group.”
Reliance Retail Ventures appoints former Flipkart Executive Jeyandran Venugopal as CEO
Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) has appointed former Flipkart executive Jeyandran Venugopal as its President and Chief Executive Officer, marking another major senior-level hire as the country’s largest retailer prepares for a potential public listing. Venugopal will work closely with Isha Ambani, executive director at RRVL, alongside the group’s wider leadership team under the guidance of Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani and Manoj Modi, as per several media reports.
NCLAT reserves verdict on CCI plea to extend WhatsApp data privacy safeguards for advertising use
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) reserved its order on a clarification plea filed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) concerning the Tribunal's November 4 judgment in the WhatsApp-Meta data-sharing case.
The CCI moved the appellate tribunal seeking clarity on its November 4 ruling, which had overturned the regulator’s directive that barred Meta and WhatsApp from sharing user data with other Meta group companies for advertising purposes for five years.
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“Two drunks leaning on a lamppost”: Sir Martin Sorrell on the Omnicom–IPG merger and the turbulence ahead
In a wide-ranging interview with Storyboard18, Sorrell delivers his frankest assessment yet of how the deal will redefine creativity, media, and talent across markets.