With a slowdown in corporate earnings growth and consumption remaining uneven, early signs of caution seem to be surfacing in advertisers’ behaviour. Several large brands across sectors, including BFSI, retail, IT and apparel, have rationalised marketing spends in the October–December quarter, reflecting tighter scrutiny of discretionary budgets amid rising macro uncertainty, industry executives shared.
The pullback is already becoming visible in media company earnings.
Zee Entertainment, for instance, posted Rs 852 crore in advertising revenue in Q3, down 9% year-on-year. DB Corp, India’s largest print publisher which owns Dainik Bhaskar, reported a 7.8% year-on-year decline in advertising revenue in Q3 FY26 to ₹439 crore.
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“Print and television tend to capture sentiment early,” said a media industry veteran. “When print weakens in a quarter like this, it usually signals a broader softening in brand spending.”
Corporate Signals Turn Softer
Corporate earnings trends reinforce this caution. Retailer Shoppers Stop posted a steep 69% year-on-year decline in consolidated net profit in Q3 FY26, citing shifts in the festive calendar and uneven consumer demand. Nasdaq-listed MakeMyTrip also reported a 73% fall in profit to $7.3 million in the December quarter.
These are part of a broader pattern. According to an early-bird tracker, the combined net profit of 143 Indian companies rose just 3.5% year-on-year in Q3 FY26 — the weakest growth in 17 quarters — sharply lower than 11.2% a year ago and 10.1% in the previous quarter. Aggregate profits slipped sequentially to ₹98,621 crore from nearly ₹1 trillion in Q2.
The slowdown has been broad-based. Companies like Wipro, TCS, HCLTech, Infosys, ICICI Bank, LTIMindtree, UTI and Dalmia Bharat reported profit pressure. Banks posted muted revenue growth, with gross interest income rising just 1.9% year-on-year, while IT earnings contracted 9.1%. Overall net sales grew 7.4%, well below the post-pandemic rebound trajectory.
Even Reliance Industries reported muted growth in its retail business, impacted by GST rate rationalisation, the demerger of its consumer products business and festive demand being split across two quarters. Its consolidated net profit in Q3 FY26 edged up marginally to ₹18,645 crore from ₹18,540 crore a year earlier.
Advertising Under Strain
India’s advertising market, pegged at around ₹1 lakh crore, has been under sustained pressure over the past two years due to global economic headwinds, US tariff uncertainties, geopolitical conflicts and prolonged inflation, the implications are immediate. Industry watchers say the sector may struggle to achieve its projected 11% growth in 2025, as per PMAR estimates.
The divergence is already visible in company disclosures.
GCPL has cut advertising and publicity spends by 6.3% year-on-year in the December quarter, even as consolidated revenue from operations grew in high single digits. The FMCG major’s advertising and publicity expenditure stood at Rs 341.37 crore in Q3 FY26, compared with Rs 364.37 crore in the year-ago quarter. On a sequential basis, ad spends declined 9.1% from Rs 375.74 crore in Q2 FY26.
Read the GCPL financial report here.
Meanwhile, Havells India cut advertising spends by 13.2% year-on-year to ₹155 crore in Q3 FY26 despite improved sequential performance, underscoring a shift towards cost discipline. Groww, too, pared branding spends even as revenues rose, with net profit falling 28% year-on-year.
Read Havells India’s Q3 report
Yet the market is not uniformly soft. Eternal (formerly Zomato) has ramped up advertising outlays to ₹937 crore in Q3 FY26, up nearly 80% year-on-year, while United Spirits raised spends by 37% to ₹523 crore.
“Growth is holding up in pockets. When earnings visibility weakens, the focus shifts from growth to margin defence. Hence, large spends are being deferred, and performance metrics are becoming non-negotiable,” the chief marketing officer at a large FMCG company shared.
Traditional Media Feels the Brunt
Media agency heads say the stress is being felt most acutely in traditional media — print, television and outdoor — even as these platforms still account for nearly half of India’s advertising spends, with brands increasingly prioritising digital for performance-led marketing.
Anil Solanki, media lead at dentsuX, said brands had restrained themselves even during the festive season and that the pressure is likely to persist. “The weak earnings growth in Q3 is likely to make Q4 advertising more cautious, with brands avoiding blanket spends and focusing on moments and channels that deliver clear ROI,” he said.
Shradha Agarwal, Co-founder and Global CEO of Grapes Worldwide, added that while brands were not pulling back entirely, spending is becoming more selective. “Q4 is marked by faster decisions and tighter cost monitoring. Even when spending picks up in 2027, it will not be uniform across segments,” she said.
Marketers are also re-evaluating high-cost traditional channels, particularly television and print, said Prakhar Srivastava, Vice-President (financial planning and corporate strategy) at White Rivers Media.
The head of an out-of-home agency pointed to sharp cuts in outdoor budgets. “The last festive season was not as strong as earlier years. Brands like Samsung cut their out-of-home spends by nearly 75%,” he said.
Focus on Performance Marketing
Brands are now fine-tuning their media mix focusing more on performance marketing. Digital, commerce-linked and regional channels are getting priority, while broader brand-building spends remain under pressure, executives noted.
“What’s really changing is the shift towards smarter, data-led decisions and campaigns that can demonstrate clear impact, instead of wide, generic brand spends,” Agarwal said.
Summing up the slowdown, Srivastava said, “Rather than completely pulling back, brands are becoming more selective while reallocating budgets towards high-impact, performance-driven digital media. The immediate focus is on formats directly linked to sales and measurable outcomes. Q4 is shaping up as a period of inventory correction and disciplined spending rather than aggressive brand-led expansion.”