The end of easy data

WITH CONSENT BECOMING CURRENCY UNDER DPDP, INDIA’S ADVERTISING ENGINE CONFRONTS ITS TOUGHEST TRANSFORMATION YET

- GEETIKA SRIVASTAVA

INDIA'S DIGITAL PERSONAL Data Protection (DPDP) Rules are forcing the country’s advertising and martech ecosystem to undertake its most far-reaching reconstruction yet.

The new consent regime, requiring permissions to be “free, specific, informed, and unambiguous”, has effectively outlawed the behavioural tracking mechanism that fuelled everything from big sale banners to festival-time ads. Penalties can climb to ₹250 crore for every instance of noncompliance. Companies now have 18 months to rebuild data flows, redesign consent journeys and change their stacks before enforcement begins in full.

While DPDP compliance may seem intimidating at first glance, it presents an opportunity for marketers to build trust with their audience and deliver more personalised, relevant campaigns.

Subarna Mukherjee, founder and global CEO of Shop Culture, says the rules are “fundamentally rewiring the campaign planning ecosystem’. For years, 65-70% of audience targeting in India relied on third-party cookies and probabilistic data. First-party data, she notes, is becoming the fastest-growing asset, with 76% of CMOs in APAC planning to increase investments.

First the immediate hurdles for brands and marketers.