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

**Rachel Varghese** (0:01)
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'Oréal 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'Oréal ended that account to hand over its 900 crore rupees media account to Publisys Group's Zenith instead. The reason, in short, was this. Publisys 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'Oréal'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. Still, it doesn't really call itself that. Even though the function drives nearly a third of Accenture's overall revenue, it just sits next to Accenture's consulting, tech and operations businesses. In an email response to The Ken, Accenture believes that its recent reorganization will sharpen Song's integration further into the company. The company said that it's pivoting the entire organization around how clients actually operate and positioning itself to bring Accenture's full capabilities together.
And what that means is this. Song doesn't really have to care about visibility much because it is already present in the boardroom. And that shapes how it thinks. Song's DNA itself is tech first. It's pretty much the opposite of traditional creative-led agencies. Which means its real competitors are not advertising groups. They're firms like Deloitte Digital.
Now, it might not be an apples-to-apples comparison. But that does not stop them from fighting in the same field anyway. What it boils down to is this. The battle to stay relevant anymore isn't just between rival agencies. It's between two whole camps. The marketing companies that learn technology, and the technology companies that learn how to be creative.
Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from The Ken. I am your host, Rachel Varghese. And every day of the week, my co-host Snigdha Sharma and I will bring you one new story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Monday, the 6th of July.
Accenture Song's playbook is pretty simple. Do everything. Accenture told The Ken that it helps brands orchestrate the entire customer experience. From the data platforms, the talent models, the tools and processes that connect experiences end to end to drive growth.
Take for example, the case of Bajaj's Chetak, the company's popular two-wheeler model. Song handled its website revamp in 2026, from discovery to crafting the customer experience to the final build. The former director said that Accenture had brought in back-end data from showrooms to understand footfall, real-time pricing, dealer locations and EV charging points. Song even pitched social media marketing. But Bajaj decided to go with a smaller agency for that instead.
There is also another example, Malabar Gold. Here, Song built an omni-channel transformation, including a consumer website and app, plus separate apps for store associates and in-store consumer experience. The former director from Accenture explained that all these features had to sync with millions of customer records, real-time gold pricing, and the geographic price differences that are actually pin-code specific. Even for its international clients, like premium Japanese beauty brands like Shiseido, Song sends out all the global digital campaigns, emailers and DMs from India.
All of this is what puts Song in a different pedigree altogether. It's tech first, while other agencies come with tech arms that were built on top of the creative one. Take for instance, the Japanese ad agency called Dentsu, which once worked for an Indian auto client. But after finishing the data optimization and meeting the sales targets, something still felt missing. Here's what it was. Devang Shah, the Chief Business Officer at Dentsu India, explained that when Dentsu actually went into the car showrooms, it realized that the consumer was having conversations that the sales rep weren't exactly tuned into. You see, a buyer like you or me would care about the car's color, or it could even be something as human as being envious about a neighbor who just bought a car, and now you want that one as well.