In May, L&#x27;Oréal ended a 16-year agency relationship. The reason? Simply that a competitor was better prepared with better data and AI capabilities. This incident illustrates the shift that&#x27;s happening in advertising right now. The agencies that bet on technology early are pulling ahead. The ones that are built on relationships are finding out how quickly those erode. Sitting unnoticed at the top of this reshuffled industry is Accenture Song. It&#x27;s the world&#x27;s largest advertising agency that doesn&#x27;t really call itself one. It made 20 billion dollars last year. And it&#x27;s barely visible in India. And that lack of visibility? That&#x27;s by design. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

The world's largest advertising agency made $20 billion last year. You've probably never heard of Accenture Song

Daybreak

There used to be a time where relationships were everything when it came to advertising. But that is not the case anymore. This May, L'Oreal India, the cosmetics giant, ended a 16-year partnership with WPP's Wavemaker. WPP, by the way, is a British multinational communications and advertising company.

L'Oreal ended that account to hand over its 900-crore media account to Publicis Group's Zenith instead. The reason, in short, was this. Publicis was much better prepared for the AI era. The company simply had better data and AI capabilities. Capabilities that it had built through acquisitions of tech-first marketing companies like Epsilon, Sapient, and Performix.

Turns out, all these acquisitions aligned far better with L'Oreal's growing focus on digital commerce. Now, this isn't just some public beef between two advertising giants. It shows a bigger shift in the industry as a whole. Right now, technology matters more than familiarity in marketing. Basically, it's the agencies that bet on tech early that are pulling ahead.

And in this whole shift, there is one beneficiary that is less visible than its peers. Accenture Song. And turns out, that lack of visibility is by choice. Now, Song is the creative arm of the consulting and tech giant. It has worked on projects from Bajaj Chetak's website revamp to deploying AI models from Malabar Gold's product content, catalog, branding, and consumer insights.

Even globally, its client list spans industries. A former managing director and chief creative officer at the company told my colleague, reporter Debanjali Biswas, that Song had worked with luxury brands like Chanel to airlines, banks, and fast-food chains like McDonald's. In fact, in FY25, Song made $20 billion in global revenue, making it the world's largest advertising agency.

The world's largest advertising agency made $20 billion last year. You've probably never heard of Accenture Song

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

The world's largest advertising agency made $20 billion last year. You've probably never heard of Accenture Song

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.