MAM
CMOs shift gears as MMA India maps a high speed reckoning for 2026
MUMBAI: If 2025 was the turbulence, 2026 is the tailwind or the test. That was the unmistakable message as the MMA India Board convened for its latest high-stakes annual huddle, warning marketers that the year ahead will demand sharper thinking, harder choices and a fundamental shift in how the CMO role is defined.
After a year marked by compressed margins, volatile consumption, urban slowdown, K-shaped recovery patterns, rapid digitisation and a deafening AI experiment rush, the board declared a clear rallying cry for 2026: Sharpen. Simplify. Strengthen.
With board members from Sanofi, Meta, Sony Pictures Network, Aditya Birla Group, Affle, Kantar, Adobe, McDonald’s, Nestlé, Google, The Trade Desk, Flipkart Ads, Myntra, Perfetti Van Melle, Accenture, Amazon Ads, L’Oréal and more in attendance along with special guest Kirthiga Reddy (Verix), the consensus was unanimous:
The Seven Shifts Marketers Cannot Ignore in 2026
1. Creativity, Commerce and Capability Must Converge
The siloed CMO is obsolete. Leaders must now drive ideas, numbers and long-term capability-building in tandem. P&L fluency is non-negotiable, and every rupee must tie back to growth levers, unit economics and lifetime value, not vanity metrics.
Challenger brands are sprinting ahead because they’re faster, leaner and financially disciplined. Legacy brands must catch up.
2. Consumer-Centricity Must Outweigh Tech Worship
The board issued a sharp caveat, Do not let AI overshadow actual human insight.
Key shifts highlighted:
. OTT attention ≠ UGC attention; context determines creative strategy.
. India is rediscovering the offline world concerts, experiences, on-ground engagement.
. Aspirations are nonlinear: consumers trade up and trade down simultaneously.
. AI must enable empathy, not erode it.
The winners in 2026, brands that keep the human at the centre.
3. India’s Consumer Pyramid Is Now Fully Fragmented
From rural resilience to urban caution, Gen Z’s anti-legacy sentiment, the squeezed middle, and the rapid rise of Q-commerce, India’s consumption story is splitting in unpredictable ways.
To win, brands must connect three forces that no longer move together:
Behaviour. Channels. Competition.
4. AI Will Rewire Everything, But Must Stay Grounded
2026 will be the year of AI effectiveness, not AI noise.
The board stressed:
. AI must prove ROI.
. It will reshape creative, planning, personalisation and measurement.
. Governance, guardrails and ethics must lead adoption.
This is the move from pilot projects to performance-driven AI.
5. Growth Lies in the Movable Middles
One of MMA’s most potent global frameworks takes centre stage in 2026.
The Movable Middles Growth Model:
. Targets consumers most likely to shift with the right nudge.
. Delivers highest incremental ROI.
. Eliminates waste on loyalists and non-converters.
. Works across TV, digital, retail media, q-commerce and programmatic.
In a low-growth economy, this becomes a survival strategy.
6. Marketing Organisations Must Become Faster and Flatter
To keep pace, CMOs must rebuild teams for:
. Shorter feedback loops
. Integrated CX + data + digital maturity
. AI-led processes
. Cross-functional KPIs
. New-age capability mixes spanning data science, retail media, product thinking and experience design
MMA’s global benchmark shows:
A 1 per cent improvement in capability fit = 2.5 per cent lift in revenue.
Capability-building is now a growth engine, not an HR initiative.
7. Gender Equity and Purpose Must Become Structural
The board made it clear: the age of performative purpose is over.
2026 must bring:
. Male allyship and policy-level interventions
. Stronger support for women at critical career inflection points
. Visibility for women leaders as a growth imperative
. Purpose woven into product, hiring, partnerships and strategy, not slogans
Purpose becomes a business input, not a brand veneer.
The Dual Mandate for 2026
The MMA India Board summarised the year ahead with a powerful dual playbook:
Solve for Now:
Growth. Profitability. Performance. Efficiency. Focus.
Build for Next:
AI maturity
CX + data depth
Organisational redesign
Retail media
Q-commerce
Consumer insight engines
As MMA India Chair Amit Jain put it, “2026 is about changing the wheels of a car moving at 80 mph.”
And the industry’s challenge is to keep accelerating without losing traction.
Brands
Delhivery chairman Deepak Kapoor, independent director Saugata Gupta quit board
Gurugram: Delhivery’s boardroom is being reset. Deepak Kapoor, chairman and independent director, has resigned with effect from April 1 as part of a planned board reconstitution, the logistics company said in an exchange filing. Saugata Gupta, managing director and chief executive of FMCG major Marico and an independent director on Delhivery’s board, has also stepped down.
Kapoor exits after an eight-year stint that included steering the company through its 2022 stock-market debut, a period that saw Delhivery transform from a venture-backed upstart into one of India’s most visible logistics platforms. Gupta, who joined the board in 2021, departs alongside him, marking a simultaneous clearing of two senior independent seats.
“Deepak and Saugata have been instrumental in our process of recognising the need for and enabling the reconstitution of the board of directors in line with our ambitious next phase of growth,” said Sahil Barua, managing director and chief executive, Delhivery. The statement frames the exits less as departures and more as deliberate succession, a boardroom shuffle timed to the company’s evolving scale and strategy.
The resignations arrive amid broader governance recalibration. In 2025, Delhivery appointed Emcure Pharmaceuticals whole-time director Namita Thapar, PB Fintech founder and chairman Yashish Dahiya, and IIM Bangalore faculty member Padmini Srinivasan as independent directors, signalling a tilt towards consumer, fintech and academic expertise at the board level.
Kapoor’s tenure spanned Delhivery’s most defining years, rapid network expansion, public listing and the push towards profitability in a bruising logistics market. Gupta’s presence brought FMCG and brand-scale perspective during a period when ecommerce volumes and last-mile delivery economics were being rewritten.
The twin exits, effective from the new financial year, underscore a familiar corporate rhythm: founders consolidate, veterans rotate out, and fresh voices are ushered in to script the next chapter. In India’s hyper-competitive logistics race, even the boardroom does not stand still.
MAM
Meta appoints Anuvrat Rao as APAC head of commerce partnerships
At Locofy.ai, Rao helped convert a three-year free beta into a paid engine, clocking 1,000 subscribers and 15 enterprise clients within ten days of launch in September 2024. The low-code startup, backed by Accel and top tech founders, is famed for turning designs into production-ready code using proprietary large design models.
Before that, Rao founded generative AI venture 1Bstories, which was acquired by creative AI platform Laetro in mid-2024, where he briefly served as managing director for APAC. Alongside operating roles, he has been an active investor and advisor since 2020, backing startups such as BotMD, Muxy, Creator plus, Intellect, Sealed and CricFlex through a creator-economy-led thesis.
Rao spent over eight years at Google, holding senior partnership roles across search, assistant, chrome, web and YouTube in APAC, and earlier cut his teeth in strategy consulting at OC&C in London and investment finance at W. P. Carey in Europe and the US.
Brands
Brnd.me enters Europe as haircare brands power global expansion
Bengaluru: Brnd.me, the global consumer brands company formerly known as Mensa Brands, has entered the European market following strong momentum across the Middle East, the United States and Canada.
The company has launched across the UK, Germany, France and Spain, with plans to expand into Italy, the Netherlands and Poland over the next year. The push is being led by its haircare and aromatherapy brands, Botanic Hearth and Majestic Pure, marking Brnd.me’s first structured expansion into Europe.
The European beauty market represents a total addressable opportunity of over $4 billion across haircare and aromatherapy, supported by high digital adoption and demand for accessible, performance-led products.
Brnd.me’s hair care and aromatherapy business currently operates at an annual run rate of around $6 million, with Botanic Hearth and Majestic Pure delivering roughly 10 per cent month-on-month growth, driven by expansion and rising repeat demand.
To support regional growth, the company has appointed a general manager based in Germany and is evaluating investments in warehousing and local team expansion.
Early traction has been strong. Within weeks of launch, Botanic Hearth’s rosemary hair oil ranked among the top five hair oils in Germany, signalling strong consumer pull in a competitive market.
Brnd.me founder and chief executive officer Ananth Narayanan, said Europe represents the next phase of the company’s international strategy. He added that the European business is expected to scale to a $10 million annual run rate by the end of 2026, with long-term ambitions to reach $60 million over the next six years.
The company’s Europe strategy centres on digital-first distribution, repeat demand and TikTok-led discovery, alongside direct-to-consumer expansion to strengthen brand equity and margins.
The move also aligns with growing EU–India trade engagement, supporting long-term sourcing and cross-border supply chains.
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