Decoding FMCG’s digital shift: Why India’s top brands are going online

India's FMCG sector, long regarded as the final bastion of television-led advertising, seems to have crossed a pivotal milestone. Between 2024 and 2025, the nation’s largest advertising category decisively moved into a digital-first era, reflecting not just a shift in media mix but a fundamental recalibration of how brands are built, scaled, and sustained in a mobile-first market.

According to the dentsu-em Digital Advertising Report, FMCG advertisers accelerated their digital push during this period, turning a gradual transition into a structural transformation. Digital allocation grew from 53% in 2024 to 64% in 2025, surpassing television. The scale of this pivot is significant given FMCG’s dominant role in India’s advertising economy. In 2024, the category contributed Rs 16,606 crore to digital advertising, representing 34% of the market, even as media plans remained hybrid. By 2025, FMCG digital spends surged to Rs 23,243 crore, while its market share eased to 32% amid faster growth elsewhere, signalling that the real change lay in internal priorities, with nearly two-thirds of FMCG advertising budgets now anchored on digital platforms. Brand leaders note this shift is driven by irreversible changes in consumer behaviour.

Ankit Agrawal, Director at Mysore Deep Perfumery House and Zed Black, said the change marks a structural reset for FMCG. He observed that a digital-first consumer base will only deepen with the next generation, making digital central not just to media planning but also to how brands create relevance and connection over time.

“Between 2024 and 2025, our focus stayed brand-first rather than budget-led. We concentrated on building a strong digital direction and understanding what works for our audience. From 2025, the roadmap for digital has been planned, while actual budget shifts are expected to come into play more clearly in the 2026-27 phase,” Agrawal noted.

Pawan Jagnik, Head of Marketing-India at pladis Global, echoed the long-term view, stating that the transition reflects a structural change. “Audiences are now decisively digital and mobile-first, with short-form content and creator ecosystems accelerating the shift. At the same time, the precision and accountability of targeted digital media far outweigh traditional channels, while the rapid growth of quick commerce further reinforces digital’s central role in FMCG marketing,” he said.

Jagnik added that as a primarily urban-focused brand, pladis follows a digital-first approach and plans to continue increasing its digital investments going forward.

This shift is evident in how brands are reallocating budgets. Raja Chakraborty, CMO at Continental Coffee, said the brand’s digital spends, including e-commerce performance advertising, grew from 15-20% to 30-40% of total ad budgets. Akash Agrawalla, Co-founder at Zoff Foods, noted a meaningful uptick in digital investments between 2024 and 2025, driven by changing consumer behaviour and digital’s increasing role in discovery and purchase, supported by clearer ROI visibility and better efficiency across video and performance-led formats.

Agency leaders say these changes were inevitable. Kartik Mehta, CBO and Head of Asia at Channel Factory, noted that the reallocation is fundamentally driven by consumer attention. “Ad dollars follow eyeballs, and digital has reshaped how consumers engage with FMCG brands, especially with the rise of quick commerce and short-form video,” he said.

Mehta added that rising media costs pushed agencies to optimise efficiency, accelerating Al-led automation adoption, though the fundamental driver remains consumer attention.

Vishal Shrivastava, Head of Business Strategy at AnyMind Group India, explained that the shift is not merely about consumer behaviour changing. From a platform perspective, media fragmentation reached a tipping point where television’s mass-reach model no longer captured real consumption patterns efficiently. By 2024-25, digital revenues grew 17% and overtook television, while TV declined 4.5%, making traditional planning models inefficient and compelling FMCG advertisers to reorganise strategies around digital.

The structural shift is also seen in traditional media’s declining role. Television’s share of FMCG media spends dropped from 40% in 2024 to 29% in 2025, print fell from 4% to 3%, and OOH from 3% to 2%, highlighting the move from appointment-based channels to always-on, digitally-led planning with sharper targeting and measurability.

The internal composition of FMCG digital spends underscores this evolution. In 2024, online video accounted for 44% of digital budgets and social media 30%, with display at 16% and paid search at 8%. By 2025, online video rose to 45% while social media held steady at 30%, making up nearly three-fourths of digital spends. Display dipped to 15% and paid search remained unchanged, highlighting their supporting, performance-led role.

“In my view, online video is generally more effective than social media. For social media to work, the brand story needs to be attention-grabbing so consumers stop scrolling. Influencer content helps, but nothing works in isolation. Influencer communication, unless crafted organically, won’t help as consumers find it less credible as paid video,” said Chakraborty.

Agrawalla added that Zoff Foods sees the strongest impact from combining short-form video with performance-led social. “Performance-led social drives clicks, product discovery, and conversions. Influencer content is important when aligned with the brand and feels authentic, but it’s a high-impact layer rather than the core driver.”

Shrivastava cited the India Digital Landscape Report by AnyMind Group, showing influencer-led short-form video as the strongest driver of awareness and recall, with shoppable and sponsored ads now standard. In 2025, brands moved from siloed campaigns to integrated systems where influencer storytelling, video, and performance optimisation work together from the outset.

“The jump from 53% to 64% digital isn’t about spending more on video or hiring influencers. It’s about understanding that these formats are ineffective in isolation. You need influencers for credibility, video for storytelling, and performance optimisation to close sales. Combined correctly, the outcome compounds,” he said.

Mehta added that while reach and frequency remain important, advertisers increasingly prioritise business outcomes over standalone digital metrics.

Jagnik said effectiveness depends on content and channel, with short-form driving reach and long-form building deeper brand context. Mysore Deep Perfumery House and Zed Black adopt a holistic, platform-agnostic approach, focusing on storytelling rooted in brand essence, maximising impact when content, creators, and distribution operate as one ecosystem.

Collectively, data and industry voices show FMCG’s digital shift is a structural reset rather than cyclical. As media fragmentation, commerce-driven platforms, and outcome-focused planning redefine effectiveness, digital has become the operating system for building, measuring, and scaling FMCG brands in the years ahead.