For India’s media and marketing community, The Advertising Club’s Emvies are a yearly temperature check on where the industry is placing its bets. The 2026 edition, held on 23 October at Mumbai’s Jio World Convention Centre, produced a clear leaderboard.
India’s media stage crowns its 2026 leaders
Hindustan Unilever was named Best Media Client of the Year, Mindshare took Best Media Agency of the Year, and WPP Media was recognised as Best Media Agency Network of the Year. The event, supported by Tata Communications and UltraTech Cement, handed out 223 trophies in all: one Grand Emvie, 57 Gold, 74 Silver and 91 Bronze.
Digital strategy takes the Grand Emvie
Wavemaker India and Colgate-Palmolive won the night’s single Grand Emvie for the Colgate Oral Health Movement, in the Best Digital Strategy category. That is the result many marketers will watch closely, because the top prize landed in digital and not in a traditional television-led campaign.
The Young Emvie of the Year award went to Chitwan Sharma of Zenith and Aditi Salian of EssenceMediacom.
Why this matters for marketers
Dheeraj Sinha, president of The Advertising Club, said the awards recognise the ideas, innovation and strategic thinking shaping the media industry. He added that the winning work reflected “ambition, rigour and creativity” and set benchmarks for media effectiveness.
The Emvies are judged across media strategy, planning, research, innovation and effectiveness. For marketing teams, that category spread doubles as a checklist of what senior media leaders consider excellent.
What to steal from the winner’s circle
- One brief, one shared result. The HUL-Mindshare and Wavemaker-Colgate pairings show that a strong client-agency unit is still central to standout work.
- Digital is where proof lives. A digital strategy case took the sole Grand Emvie, underlining the shift toward measurable, outcome-led media.
- Depth beats volume. With 223 trophies, the categories reward detailed work across planning and research, not a broad spray of activity.
Use it before your next media review
Run a simple audit. For each major campaign, ask what measurable outcome it delivered and where the evidence shows a change in behaviour or business result. Could the story hold up in an innovation or effectiveness category? If you cannot answer those questions, the plan may be built for delivery rather than proof.
It is also worth noting that a consumer-health digital movement claimed the top prize. The strongest cases tend to start with a sharp human problem and then use media to solve it, rather than starting with a format or inventory.
Source: ETBrandEquity.com
