In a world where AI buzz dominates headlines, MMA India\u2019s recent board meeting did something different \u2014 it rolled up its sleeves. Held last month in Mumbai, the quarterly boardroom wasn\u2019t just a status check. It was a strategic reset.<\/p>\n
Bringing together marketing leaders from Adobe, Nestl\u00e9, Myntra, Haleon, Kotak, Jubilant, Snap, CK Birla, and others, the closed-door session focused on a bold agenda: rewiring marketing for the next growth cycle. And the signal was loud and clear \u2014 the marketing head is no longer just the brand\u2019s voice. They\u2019re becoming the backbone of growth.<\/p>\n
The CMO Recast: From Custodian to Catalyst<\/p>\n
A growing consensus among board members is that today\u2019s CMO must think like a CTO, speak like a CFO, and act like a COO. The role now demands fluency in financial outcomes, operational capability, and AI-driven decision-making.<\/p>\n
Nikhil Sharma of Perfetti and Chandan Mukherjee of Nestl\u00e9 underscored the need for marketing leaders to link brand actions directly to business performance. As automation takes over execution, CMOs are being tasked with owning capability modeling, ROI logic, and upstream influence \u2014 no longer just storytelling.<\/p>\n
From Frameworks to Field Use: Where India Leads<\/p>\n
The MMA India board isn\u2019t theorizing \u2014 it\u2019s executing. Global MMA frameworks are being adapted for Indian market realities. Nestl\u00e9 and Jubilant are early adopters of CAP (Consortium for AI Personalisation) and MMGF (Movable Middles Growth Framework), both of which are showing tangible ROI gains through sharper segmentation and personalization.<\/p>\n
As one member noted, \u201cWe\u2019re not just deploying tools. We\u2019re rethinking marketing operating systems \u2014 from org charts to investment models.\u201d<\/p>\n
Top Signals from the Marketing Room
\n1. Agentic AI: The New Workflow Blueprint<\/p>\n
Adobe\u2019s session, led by newly inducted MMA India board member Anindita Veluri, sparked vigorous conversation. Her team\u2019s Agentic AI framework revealed how AI agents \u2014 like Audience Agent and Journey Agent \u2014 are not only generating consumer segments but also orchestrating multichannel journeys and optimizing content, end-to-end.<\/p>\n
The takeaway: this is no longer support tech; it\u2019s a structural reimagination. \u201cBrands aren\u2019t just hiring AI. They\u2019re giving it KPIs,\u201d remarked one participant.<\/p>\n
Adobe\u2019s global pilots, including with Coca-Cola, have moved from proof-of-concept to active deployment. MMA India itself is now exploring an internal Agentic AI use case to enhance outreach, engagement, and operational throughput.<\/p>\n
2. The Movable Middle: Precision Over Reach<\/p>\n
The days of chasing mass-reach metrics may be numbered. The MMGF framework focuses on the \u201cmovable middle\u201d \u2014 segments that are most likely to shift behaviors with the right nudge. Nestl\u00e9 and Jubilant\u2019s early adoption is proving promising.<\/p>\n
In an era of rising media costs and shrinking attention spans, this shift from mass to math is being hailed as marketing\u2019s most overdue correction.<\/p>\n
3. Agentic AI = Productivity Reimagined<\/p>\n
Beyond strategy, the practical implications of Agentic AI were front and center. From content generation to optimization and measurement, AI agents are freeing up marketers to focus on creativity and orchestration.<\/p>\n
Vipul Kedia, COO at Affle and another new board inductee, emphasized the value of agility in today\u2019s fragmented, real-time media environment. AI-driven automation, he said, \u201callows brands to respond with speed and precision \u2014 something manual models can\u2019t scale.\u201d<\/p>\n
Concerns remain \u2014 around interoperability, model training, and ROI validation \u2014 but the sentiment in the room was one of momentum, not hesitation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a world where AI buzz dominates headlines, MMA India\u2019s recent board meeting did something different \u2014 it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-37567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}