History will record Martin Sorrell as one of the most consequential figures in modern advertising.

It should also record that the system he perfected reshaped the industry in ways we are still trying to recover from.

When Sorrell took control of a small UK manufacturer called Wire and Plastic Products in 1985 and turned it into WPP, he did more than build a holding company. He engineered a publicly traded acquisition machine. Over three decades, WPP acquired more than 300 companies. By 2017, it employed over 1,30,000 people across more than 100 countries and generated revenues exceeding 15 billion dollars.

It was scale without precedent.

Media buying consolidated under powerhouses like GroupM. Negotiating leverage with broadcasters and publishers reached global dominance. Margins stabilised. Analysts rewarded predictability. Shareholders rewarded growth.

And quietly, creativity moved from the centre of gravity to the margin column.

In India, the structural shift was profound.

By the mid 2010s, the top five global holding companies controlled roughly 65-75 percent of organised agency revenue. Annual media billings crossed INR 60,000 crore. Procurement became standard in pitches. Retainers compressed. Output expectations multiplied. Talent churn accelerated.

Media became measurable muscle. Creative became a cost to justify.

Once networks were accountable to quarterly earnings, growth targets were no longer creative ambitions. They were financial obligations. The separation of media and creative, positioned as specialisation, created a hierarchy. Media scaled predictably. Creative operated under margin pressure. Boardroom conversations increasingly centred around EBITDA, integration and synergies.

This was not personal. It was structural.

When Sorrell exited WPP in 2018 following an internal investigation into alleged misconduct, which he denied, the industry assumed the model might soften. Instead, he launched S4 Capital, promising a digital first alternative built around content and data through acquisitions like MediaMonks.

Yet even the new structure has faced profit warnings and restructuring challenges in recent years amid global ad slowdowns and integration complexity. Scale, whether analog or digital, obeys the same gravity.

Meanwhile, in India, the counter current has been gathering force.

Founder-led independent agencies have grown faster than traditional networks in several digital and performance segments. Decision cycles are shorter. Cultural instincts are sharper. Clients increasingly seek agility over hierarchy. Consulting firms such as Accenture Song and Deloitte Digital now compete directly for transformation budgets that once belonged to agencies by default.

The Martin Sorrell era delivered unprecedented scale, unmatched negotiation power and enormous shareholder wealth. It also institutionalised a model where financial optimisation often outran creative conviction.

This is not a verdict on a man. It is an examination of a system.

When creativity answers to quarterly guidance, it behaves differently. When culture is measured like inventory, it loses edge.

India now stands at a strategic crossroads. We can continue optimising for margin efficiency and global integration charts. Or we can build companies where capital enables creativity rather than constrains it.

Sorrell mastered the stock market.

The next generation must master culture.

Because ideas do not compound like shares. They either move people or they do not.

The author is chief executive officer, Famous Innovations. This article first appeared in the March issue of Manifest which can be bought here.