Pitch CMO Summit 2026 Opens in Bengaluru With Consumer Shifts, Technology and Brand Growth in Focus
The Pitch CMO Summit 2026 opened in Bengaluru on September 3, bringing together senior marketing, advertising and brand leaders to examine how changing consumer behaviour, artificial intelligence, fragmented media and increasing performance expectations are reshaping the way companies build brands.
The 2026 edition is centred on the broader theme:
“Building Brand Love in the Age of Disruption.”
The agenda combines keynote sessions, fireside conversations and panel discussions covering areas including brand building, consumer relationships, culture, performance marketing, artificial intelligence, personalisation and data consent.
The summit comes at a time when chief marketing officers are being asked to solve an increasingly difficult equation: maintain long-term brand relevance while simultaneously delivering measurable short-term business outcomes across a rapidly expanding number of digital channels.
The conference is being followed by the sixth edition of the Indian Marketing Awards – South, which recognises marketing work from across South India for creativity, innovation and effectiveness.
Pitch CMO Summit 2026 Begins in Bengaluru
The latest edition of the Pitch CMO Summit is being held on:
September 3, 2026
in:
Bengaluru.
The conference brings together leaders from:
marketing,
advertising,
media,
consumer businesses,
financial services,
technology,
and digital platforms.
The purpose of the summit is to examine the forces currently changing the relationship between brands and consumers.
These include:
AI,
new media platforms,
creators,
changing privacy expectations,
fragmented customer journeys,
and pressure to demonstrate measurable returns from marketing expenditure.
Building Brand Love in an Age of Disruption
The central theme of the summit reflects a fundamental challenge facing modern marketers.
Reaching consumers has never offered more options.
Brands can communicate through:
social media,
creators,
Connected TV,
digital video,
search,
e-commerce,
messaging,
and traditional media.
Yet more channels do not automatically create stronger relationships.
Consumers are exposed to enormous volumes of commercial content, making:
attention,
trust,
and distinctiveness
increasingly difficult to earn.
The summit therefore focuses on how brands can create lasting consumer affinity despite a highly fragmented communications environment.
Consumer Behaviour Is Changing Faster
One of the principal subjects across the event is:
evolving consumer behaviour.
Consumers increasingly move between multiple platforms before making purchasing decisions.
A customer might discover a product through:
a creator,
research it through search,
watch reviews,
compare prices on e-commerce platforms,
and finally purchase either online or offline.
Traditional linear marketing funnels are therefore becoming more complicated.
Marketers increasingly need to understand the entire customer journey rather than optimise individual channels independently.
Technology Is Reshaping Marketing Strategy
Technology is another central theme.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how marketing teams:
create content,
analyse audiences,
personalise communication,
research consumers,
optimise campaigns,
and measure performance.
AI can potentially allow companies to create more marketing variations and respond to consumer behaviour much faster.
At the same time, greater automation increases the risk that communications become:
generic,
overproduced,
or emotionally disconnected.
The challenge for marketers is therefore not merely adopting AI.
It is determining where technology improves the consumer relationship and where human judgement remains essential.
AI Has Democratised Marketing Capabilities
A major discussion at the summit examined how AI is changing brand building.
Pallavi Saxena, Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer at Cleartrip, and Nitin Khanna, Chief Marketing Officer at ACKO, discussed how the marketing environment has changed while many underlying brand principles remain intact.
AI has lowered the cost of activities that previously required:
larger creative resources,
technical capabilities,
or specialised production.
Smaller companies can now generate content, analyse information and experiment with campaigns more efficiently.
That democratises marketing capabilities.
But when everyone gains access to similar technology, technology itself becomes less of a differentiator.
Brand Fundamentals Remain Relevant
One important conclusion emerging from the discussion is that traditional brand fundamentals have not disappeared.
Strong brands still need:
distinctiveness,
credibility,
usefulness,
trust,
and clear consumer relevance.
AI can improve execution, but it cannot compensate indefinitely for a weak brand proposition.
A company still needs to answer fundamental questions:
What problem does the brand solve?
Why should consumers remember it?
Why should they trust it?
Why should they choose it over competing alternatives?
Technology changes how these questions are addressed, but not why they matter.
Marketers Have Less Control Over Brand Narratives
One major structural change is that brands no longer control all communication about themselves.
Consumers increasingly encounter brands through:
creators,
user-generated content,
online reviews,
social conversations,
and independent communities.
A company's advertising may represent only one part of the overall narrative.
This makes marketing less about controlling every message and more about influencing a broader ecosystem of conversations.
The shift places additional importance on:
product quality,
customer experience,
authenticity,
and reputation.
Infinite Content Makes Distinctiveness Harder
Generative AI has dramatically increased the amount of content that companies and individuals can produce.
That creates a paradox.
Content is becoming cheaper to generate while:
consumer attention is becoming more valuable.
Brands can produce more advertisements, videos and social posts than ever before.
But if competitors can do the same, the volume alone creates little advantage.
The strategic challenge increasingly becomes:
how to be remembered rather than merely how to publish more.
This makes creative distinctiveness and consistent brand identity increasingly important.
Long-Term Brand Building Still Matters
The summit also highlights tension between:
short-term performance
and:
long-term brand building.
Digital marketing gives companies detailed metrics around:
clicks,
conversions,
leads,
and customer acquisition.
These measurements can encourage organisations to prioritise immediate returns.
But brands are built over longer periods.
Consumers may encounter a company many times before making a purchase.
Marketing leaders therefore need to balance immediate performance with investments that create:
awareness,
memory,
trust,
and preference.
Full-Funnel Marketing Takes Centre Stage
One of the major summit panels is titled:
“Bridging Brand and Performance: The New Full-Funnel Playbook.”
The discussion examines how marketers can integrate brand-building activities with performance marketing across the customer journey.
The panel includes:
Anupam Nair, Chief Marketing and Growth Officer, MTR Foods;
Diptakirti Chaudhuri, Chief Marketing Officer, Casagrand;
Janani Sundararajan, Head of Portfolio, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions;
Ratnesh Pandey, Vice President – Marketing, Schneider Electric India;
Tarun Ummat, Managing Director, Teads India;
and:
Varun Khanna, Senior Vice President – Marketing, Licious.
The session is moderated by Sujata Singh, President – South at Havas Media India.
Brand and Performance Are Converging
Historically, companies frequently separated:
brand marketing
from:
performance marketing.
Brand teams concentrated on awareness and reputation.
Performance teams concentrated on measurable conversion.
Digital consumer behaviour increasingly makes that distinction less useful.
A consumer may see a brand video in one environment, discover a creator recommendation somewhere else and convert through an entirely different channel.
Marketing effectiveness therefore needs to be evaluated across the full journey.
This is why full-funnel thinking is becoming increasingly important.
Short-Term Measurement Can Distort Marketing Decisions
One challenge with digital marketing is that easily measurable activity can receive disproportionate investment.
Performance campaigns can often demonstrate direct:
clicks,
leads,
or sales.
Brand-building activity may produce value over several years.
If companies evaluate both using identical short-term metrics, brand investment can appear less efficient.
The summit's full-funnel discussion reflects an industry-wide effort to connect:
long-term brand equity
with:
short-term commercial outcomes.
Consumer Inspiration Starts Before Purchase
Modern customer journeys often begin well before a person starts actively searching for a product.
Travel provides a clear example.
A consumer may first become interested in a destination through:
social media,
friends,
video,
or cultural content.
Only later do they search for:
flights,
hotels,
or insurance.
Brands that participate only at the final purchase stage may therefore miss a significant part of the decision-making process.
This makes inspiration and useful content strategically important.
Culture Becomes Important to Brand Relevance
Another major summit theme is:
culture.
Puneet Das, Chief Marketing Officer of Britannia Industries, is participating in a session examining the role of culture in building brand love.
Culture can include:
language,
food,
celebrations,
entertainment,
humour,
regional identities,
and everyday rituals.
Brands that understand these contexts can become more relevant to consumers.
However, cultural marketing also requires sensitivity.
Companies need to participate authentically rather than appearing to exploit cultural moments merely for visibility.
Britannia Session Examines Cultural Connection
Britannia operates in categories deeply embedded in everyday consumer behaviour.
Food brands frequently become part of:
household routines,
childhood memories,
social occasions,
and regional preferences.
The company's participation in a discussion about culture therefore reflects an important principle of brand building.
Products can achieve stronger emotional resonance when they become connected to:
habits
and:
moments
that consumers already value.
This type of association is difficult for purely transactional advertising to reproduce.
Diageo India Focuses on Consumers, Occasions and Culture
Amitabh Pande, Chief Strategy Officer at Diageo India, is leading another summit session focused on:
“Building Brands That Win Consumers, Occasions and Culture.”
The discussion examines how brands can move beyond simple awareness and become relevant to specific consumer occasions.
Occasion-based marketing asks a different question from traditional demographic segmentation.
Instead of only asking:
Who is the consumer?
marketers also ask:
When does the consumer need the product?
Why?
And in what emotional or social context?
Understanding these occasions can help brands identify new growth opportunities.
Owning Consumer Occasions Can Drive Growth
Many successful brands become strongly associated with particular moments.
These might include:
celebrations,
travel,
mealtimes,
sports,
festivals,
social gatherings,
or personal milestones.
When a brand becomes mentally associated with an occasion, consumers may recall it naturally when that occasion occurs.
This can create stronger commercial advantages than simply generating awareness.
The challenge is building such associations consistently over time.
Matrimony.com Founder Discusses Winning Hearts
Another major summit conversation involves Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and chief executive of Matrimony.com.
His fireside chat is centred on:
“Winning Hearts, Not Just Markets.”
The session reflects the broader summit theme that brand growth cannot be reduced entirely to:
market share,
distribution,
or transaction volumes.
Companies operating in emotionally important categories need to build deeper trust.
Matrimony services operate around one of the most significant personal decisions consumers make.
That makes emotional credibility particularly important.
Emotional Connection Remains Commercially Valuable
Digital transformation has made marketing increasingly quantitative.
Companies can measure enormous numbers of:
impressions,
views,
clicks,
sessions,
and conversions.
But consumers do not experience brands only through spreadsheets.
They form emotional impressions.
A brand may feel:
trustworthy,
useful,
premium,
friendly,
reliable,
or culturally relevant.
These perceptions can influence purchasing behaviour even when they are difficult to attribute precisely to a single campaign.
The summit's focus on brand love reflects renewed attention to this emotional dimension.
AI Creates Need for More Human Brands
One panel is explicitly examining:
“From Transactions to Relationships: Building A Human Brand in an AI-Powered World.”
Participants include executives from:
Aachi Masala Foods,
ShareChat,
Ujjivan Small Finance Bank,
Truecaller,
and Sattva Group.
The discussion centres on a growing marketing paradox.
As businesses automate more consumer interactions, maintaining a sense of human connection becomes more difficult.
Technology can make communication:
faster,
more personalised,
and more scalable.
But poorly designed automation can also make consumers feel that they are interacting with a system rather than a brand that understands them.
Human Brand Panel Brings Diverse Industries Together
The panel includes:
Gerald Martin Joseph, Senior General Manager – Marketing, Aachi Masala Foods;
Kartik Patiar, Senior Director – Clients, ShareChat;
Lakshman Velayutham, Chief Marketing Officer, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank;
Nikhil Kumar, Sales Director, Truecaller;
and:
Piali Dasgupta Surendran, Vice President – Marketing, Sattva Group.
It is moderated by Ruhail Amin, Senior Editor at BW Businessworld and exchange4media Group.
The diversity of sectors shows that the challenge of maintaining human relationships in automated environments extends across consumer products, finance, technology and real estate.
AI Personalisation Must Avoid Feeling Mechanical
AI allows brands to personalise communication at enormous scale.
A system can potentially adapt:
recommendations,
offers,
content,
and messaging
to individual consumers.
But personalisation is valuable only when it feels relevant.
Consumers may react negatively when automated targeting appears:
intrusive,
inaccurate,
or manipulative.
Successful AI marketing therefore requires more than data.
It requires an understanding of:
context,
timing,
consumer expectations,
and appropriate boundaries.
Trust Is Emerging as Central Marketing Asset
Trust appears repeatedly across the summit's themes.
Consumers increasingly evaluate brands based on:
how they use data,
how authentic their communication feels,
how consistently they deliver,
and whether technology improves or complicates their experience.
Trust is especially important when companies use AI.
Consumers may not always understand how automated systems make decisions.
Brands therefore need to ensure technology does not weaken confidence in the relationship.
Data Consent Becomes Growth Issue
One of the day's discussions adds another dimension to the marketing debate:
consumer permission.
Gowthaman Ragothaman, Founding CEO of Saptharushi, used his spotlight session to argue that marketers will increasingly need to focus not simply on obtaining consumer data but on retaining permission to use it.
His session centres on:
“Brand Love Runs on Trust: Why Consent Is the New Growth Engine.”
As privacy requirements strengthen, the ability to maintain consumer consent could become a strategic marketing issue rather than merely a compliance task.
Marketers Face Emerging Permission Wall
Digital marketers have already dealt with restrictions created by:
platform changes,
signal loss,
and reduced third-party tracking.
Greater consumer control over personal information creates another barrier:
the permission wall.
Brands may possess consumer data but still need appropriate permission to activate it for marketing.
This changes the economics of customer relationships.
A consumer who trusts a brand may remain willing to share information and receive communications.
A dissatisfied consumer can withdraw that permission.
Consent Could Become Brand Metric
This creates the possibility of new marketing metrics.
Companies traditionally measure:
acquisition,
retention,
engagement,
and churn.
In a more permission-led environment, marketers may increasingly monitor:
consent rates
and:
consent withdrawal.
A rising withdrawal rate could indicate that consumers perceive communications as:
irrelevant,
excessive,
or insufficiently trustworthy.
Consent can therefore become an indirect measure of relationship quality.
Data Protection Changes Marketing Economics
India's evolving data-governance environment means marketers need greater discipline around personal information.
The earlier digital-marketing model frequently rewarded companies for accumulating as much data as possible.
The next phase could prioritise:
quality,
permission,
and first-party relationships.
Brands capable of earning explicit consumer trust may gain an advantage over competitors dependent on less durable forms of targeting.
This creates a direct connection between:
privacy
and:
brand equity.
Creativity, Data and Technology Must Work Together
The Pitch CMO Summit's broader message is that no single capability is sufficient for modern marketing.
Creativity without data can make measurement difficult.
Data without creativity can generate technically optimised but forgettable communication.
Technology without consumer understanding can create impersonal experiences.
The strongest marketing systems therefore combine:
creativity, data, technology and personalisation
while retaining a clear brand identity.
Personalisation Must Support Brand Consistency
One risk of hyper-personalisation is fragmentation.
If every consumer sees entirely different messaging, the brand can lose a consistent identity.
Strong brands are built partly through repeated distinctive signals.
These can include:
visual identity,
tone,
product experience,
values,
or recurring creative assets.
Marketers therefore need to balance individually relevant communication with consistent brand memory.
Creators Continue to Change Brand Communication
The rise of creators has changed how brands gain attention and credibility.
Consumers increasingly discover products through people they follow rather than conventional advertising alone.
Creators can provide:
cultural relevance,
community access,
and perceived authenticity.
However, companies give up some message control when working through creators.
The relationship therefore needs to balance:
brand consistency
with:
creator independence.
User-Generated Content Reduces Brand Control Further
User-generated content creates an even less controllable environment.
Consumers can publicly:
review products,
criticise campaigns,
share experiences,
or reinterpret brand messages.
This means reputation management is increasingly inseparable from marketing.
A strong advertising campaign cannot fully compensate for poor customer experiences that spread rapidly online.
Brand building is therefore becoming more closely connected to the entire organisation.
Marketing Is Becoming a Company-Wide Function
As consumer experience becomes more important, the CMO's influence increasingly extends beyond media and communications.
Marketing outcomes are affected by:
product design,
customer support,
digital experience,
pricing,
distribution,
and service quality.
A company cannot create strong brand love solely through advertising if the underlying experience disappoints consumers.
This means brand building increasingly requires coordination across:
marketing,
technology,
operations,
and product teams.
CMOs Face Greater Pressure to Demonstrate Growth
At the same time, marketing leaders are under greater pressure to connect their activity directly to business outcomes.
Boards and chief executives increasingly want clarity around:
customer acquisition,
revenue contribution,
retention,
and return on marketing spend.
This creates a more commercially accountable CMO role.
Marketing leaders need to speak both languages:
brand
and:
growth.
The summit's emphasis on full-funnel marketing reflects this shift.
Marketing Measurement Is Becoming More Complex
Ironically, the expansion of digital data has not necessarily made marketing measurement simple.
Customers interact across many channels.
A purchase may result from:
years of brand exposure,
a creator recommendation,
a search advertisement,
and a promotional offer
all working together.
Giving full credit to the final click can undervalue everything that happened earlier.
Marketers therefore need increasingly sophisticated approaches to attribution and measurement.
Brand Love Can Have Economic Value
The phrase “brand love” may sound intangible, but strong consumer preference can have real commercial consequences.
Trusted brands may benefit from:
higher repeat purchase,
lower customer acquisition costs,
greater pricing resilience,
and stronger word of mouth.
They may also recover more effectively from temporary mistakes.
The economic value therefore comes from the durability of the customer relationship.
The summit is effectively asking how companies can create that durability in an increasingly disrupted environment.
Bengaluru Provides Relevant Setting for Summit
Bengaluru is an especially relevant location for a discussion about the convergence of marketing and technology.
The city hosts large communities across:
technology,
startups,
consumer internet,
e-commerce,
SaaS,
fintech,
and global capability centres.
Many companies operating from Bengaluru are actively experimenting with:
AI,
personalisation,
digital commerce,
and data-driven customer acquisition.
The city's business environment reflects many of the changes being discussed at the summit.
Marketing and Technology Functions Are Converging
Marketing organisations increasingly depend on technology infrastructure.
Modern marketing stacks can include:
customer data platforms,
CRM systems,
analytics,
marketing automation,
AI tools,
commerce platforms,
and attribution systems.
This means the relationship between:
CMOs
and:
technology teams
is becoming much closer.
Some of the most consequential marketing decisions now involve technology architecture as much as creative strategy.
AI Could Change Marketing Team Structures
Artificial intelligence may also change how marketing departments are organised.
Tasks such as:
research,
copy variations,
visual ideation,
reporting,
and campaign optimisation
can increasingly be assisted by AI.
Teams may become:
smaller,
faster,
and more multidisciplinary.
Employees could spend less time producing routine outputs and more time on:
strategy,
judgement,
experimentation,
and consumer insight.
The long-term competitive advantage may therefore come from how effectively organisations redesign work around AI.
AI Creates More Experimentation Opportunities
One immediate advantage of AI is the ability to test more ideas.
Marketing teams can generate and evaluate:
multiple creative concepts,
audience variations,
headlines,
and campaign scenarios
much faster.
This can make experimentation more affordable.
But greater experimentation requires strong strategic direction.
Otherwise, companies risk optimising thousands of small variables without building a coherent brand.
Speed does not remove the need for judgement.
Authenticity Becomes Scarcer in Automated Environment
As synthetic content becomes commonplace, authentic human expression could become more valuable.
Consumers may increasingly distinguish between communication that feels:
manufactured
and:
genuine.
This does not mean brands should avoid AI.
It means automation should support rather than erase human perspective.
Brands capable of maintaining a recognisable voice amid enormous volumes of machine-assisted content may become more distinctive.
IMA South 2026 Follows Conference
Following the Pitch CMO Summit, the sixth edition of the Indian Marketing Awards – South 2026 is being held.
The awards recognise marketing work from southern India based on areas including:
creativity,
innovation,
and effectiveness.
Connecting the summit with the awards creates two complementary perspectives.
The conference focuses on:
where marketing is going.
The awards examine:
work already demonstrating how brands are responding to that changing environment.
Summit Supported by Marketing and Media Partners
Pitch CMO Summit 2026 is:
co-presented by Snapchat and Mediakart
and:
co-powered by Zee Media and Saptharushi.
Its Gold Partners include:
ShareChat & Moj, Sakal and Frodoh.
DT is the Associate Partner, while Pepper is a Co-Partner.
The partner mix itself reflects the diversity of the modern marketing ecosystem, spanning:
social platforms,
media,
technology,
and marketing services.
Marketing Leadership Is Entering a New Phase
The broader significance of the summit lies in how dramatically the CMO's job is changing.
Marketing leaders are expected to understand:
brand strategy,
technology,
data,
AI,
privacy,
commerce,
culture,
consumer psychology,
and financial performance.
Few executive functions sit across so many rapidly changing disciplines.
The CMO of the next decade is therefore likely to operate less as a communications leader and more as an integrated:
consumer,
technology,
and growth executive.
Conclusion
Pitch CMO Summit 2026 has opened in Bengaluru with a clear focus on how brands can remain distinctive, trusted and commercially effective as artificial intelligence, changing consumer behaviour and fragmented media reshape modern marketing.
Held on September 3, the summit brings together senior leaders from companies including Britannia Industries, Diageo India, Cleartrip, ACKO, MTR Foods, Licious, Matrimony.com, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, ShareChat and other major organisations.
The discussions span several of marketing's most important current questions: how to balance brand and performance, how AI should be used without losing human connection, how culture creates relevance and how consumer consent is becoming increasingly important to data-driven growth.
A recurring message across the summit is that technology may be changing the mechanics of marketing faster than ever, but the foundations of strong brands remain familiar.
Consumers still value:
relevance,
distinctiveness,
trust,
usefulness,
and authentic relationships.
The competitive challenge for marketers is therefore not choosing between technology and brand building.
It is learning how to use new technology while preserving the human and emotional qualities that make consumers care about brands in the first place.
The summit will be followed by the Indian Marketing Awards – South 2026, recognising creative and effective marketing work across the region.