Behind the facade: Ad industry's reckoning

Trust deficit in Indian advertising deepens as CCI investigates anti-competitive practices, opaque pricing and market control tactics

- Gaurav Laghate

In an industry known for controlling narratives, Indian advertising is now grappling with one it can't spin. Just days before the Indian Premier League (IPL) kicked off—India's single biggest ad moment of the year—the Competition Commission of India (CCI) launched a sweeping investigation into the heart of the media-buying ecosystem.

On 18 March, CCI officials raided the offices of India's biggest media agencies—GroupM, IPG Mediabrands, Publicis, Dentsu, and Madison—alongside top industry bodies, including the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), the Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation (IBDF), and the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA). The allegation: price collusion and anti-competitive arrangements that may have distorted how ad rates and media inventories were negotiated, especially around marquee events like the IPL.

Since then, the silence has been deafening. Queries sent to the CEOs of the top agencies yielded no responses. AAAI, too, has not issued a comment. But a confidential advisory from the association to its members reveals the tension. The note—seen by Mint—instructed agencies to avoid any form of coordination: no price sharing, no informal chats, and definitely no WhatsApp groups.

The mood across the industry is somewhere between damage control and denial. "There's discomfort, not panic. But everyone knows this is serious," said a senior executive at a media agency. "You don't see the CCI walk in with court orders and forensic teams unless they're convinced something's off."