Adgully Network brought its CMOs’ Charcha series to Bengaluru on September 1, 2026, pairing a day of keynotes, fireside chats and panels with the DATAMATIXX Awards. The theme — “The Future-Ready Marketer: Predictive, Personal And Purpose-Driven” — set the tone for conversations on how AI, data and consumer communities are rewriting the marketing leader’s job description.
What was on the agenda
Sessions ranged across contextual advertising, connected TV, retail media and programmatic buying, alongside the broader question of how technology now sits inside brand building rather than beside it. A recurring thread: marketers need to move past conventional playbooks and build brands that anticipate demand rather than react to it.
The speaker line-up spanned broadcast, tech, agencies and D2C. It included Ranjana Mangla, Head – Digital Ad Sales & YouTube Business, and Akshay Agrawal, Head – Linear Ad Sales, both from Sony Pictures Networks India; Manas Gupta, Worldwide Personalization Lead – Digital Commerce at Lenovo; Ganga Ganapathi, International Marketing Leader at Publicis Sapient; Anil Gurnani, COO at TTK Prestige; Sujata Singh, President – South at Havas Media India; Nitin Khanna, VP Marketing at Acko; Praseed Prasad, President – Growth and Marketing South Asia at WPP Media; Sooraj Balakrishnan, Head of Marketing at Acer; Varun Oberoi, Head of Marketing at Indo Nissin Foods; Ken Sekhar, Marketing Head at POCO; and Nabajit Nath, Sales Director India at Kargo.
The takeaway: technology plus human insight
Speaking about the day, Bijoya Ghosh, Founder & CEO of Adgully Network, framed the future-ready marketer as someone who does not merely adopt new tools but knows “how to combine technology with human insight”, keeping the consumer at the centre of decisions on AI, data, personalisation and purpose.
That framing is worth holding on to. Across Indian marketing teams, the AI conversation has largely been about speed — faster creative variants, faster media optimisation, faster reporting. The Bengaluru discussions pushed the emphasis back towards contextual relevance and consumer understanding as the things that actually make a brand connection stick.
Champions of Business & Marketing Leadership
Adgully and its jury recognised ten leaders for translating vision into business impact:
- Praseed Prasad – WPP Media
- Anil Gurnani – TTK Prestige
- Suman Pal – Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting
- Nitin Khanna – Acko
- Manas Gupta – Lenovo
- Sooraj Balakrishnan – Acer
- Daman Bali – Zivame
- Aditi Olemann – Cashfree Payments
- Varun Oberoi – Indo Nissin Foods
- Venkatesh Kashyap – HiveMinds
DATAMATIXX Awards winners
The DATAMATIXX Awards spotlighted technology-led work across the marketing, advertising, media and digital ecosystem. Winners announced included Mobavenue for Outstanding Achievement in AI-Powered Programmatic Excellence; Appmontize Media for Best Programmatic Capabilities by an Agency; Sony Pictures for Best Interactive Mobile Campaign; Mia by Tanishq for Best Programmatic Video Campaign; and State Bank of India for Best Content Marketing Campaign.
The mix is telling. Two of the five awards went to programmatic execution, one to interactive mobile and one to content marketing by a public sector bank — a reminder that performance-led recognition in India now cuts across categories that were once considered conservative advertisers.
Why it matters for marketers
Industry forums like this are a useful barometer of where budgets are drifting. The Bengaluru agenda — CTV, retail media, contextual advertising, programmatic — maps closely to the channels absorbing incremental digital spends in India. If your 2026-27 planning does not have a considered position on at least two of those four, you are planning against last year’s map.
A simple way to pressure-test the “predictive, personal, purpose-driven” idea inside your own team:
- Predictive: Which decisions can your data actually forecast today, versus merely describe after the fact?
- Personal: Is personalisation happening at the creative and offer level, or only in targeting?
- Purpose-driven: Does your brand’s stated purpose show up in product and service experience, or only in campaign films?
The Bengaluru edition follows Adgully’s nationwide CMOs’ Charcha chapters in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. The event was presented by Sony Vizha and Sony LIV, with Kargo as Creative Adtech Partner, Crichit by Adsphire and Napptix as Co-Powered By partners, and Animoov, Apptrove, CereOne and Vertoz as Gold Partners.
Source: The Tribune
