Marketing’s Christmas wish: purpose over performance, says Reliance CMO Gayatri Yadav

MUMBAI: Marketing has stuffed its own stocking with metrics—and misplaced its meaning. That, in essence, is the Christmas message from Gayatri Vasudeva Yadav, group chief marketing officer, Reliance, who has issued a sharp year-end wake-up call to an industry she says has forgotten why it exists.

In a candid “Dear Santa” note doing the rounds of the industry, Yadav argues that marketing has boxed itself into tidy but dangerous silos—brand, growth, performance, content—as if each lived on a different planet. They don’t. Or at least, they shouldn’t.

The real job of marketing, she says, is to juggle the now and the next: short-term sales and long-term brand, dashboards and dreams, boardrooms and creative studios. Marketing is not a support act. It is the growth engine—and the conscience—of the business.

In India, the stakes are higher. This is a market built on trust, scale and long memory, where brands are not merely bought but welcomed into homes, festivals and everyday lives. Yet too many marketers, Yadav warns, are optimising for the quarter while quietly eroding the equity that took decades to build.

The irony is glaring. India is at a once-in-a-generation moment to create businesses of global scale and impact. And yet, the number of Indian brands in the global top 100 remains stubbornly small. Coincidence? She doesn’t think so.

Her prescription for 2026 is disarmingly simple: put the customer back at the centre—not as a data point, but as a human being. Remember that growth without respect is brittle, and performance without purpose is fleeting.

Yadav also fires a gentle shot across the AI bow. Yes, artificial intelligence is a force multiplier. No, it is not a substitute for judgment. Data must dance with empathy; logic with imagination.

The closing note is less festive cheer, more alarm bell. If marketing does not reclaim its leadership role, it risks sliding into irrelevance. If it does, Indian marketing can still build global brands that endure—and businesses that scale with trust.

Season’s greetings, then. But consider this less a carol, more a call to arms.