Davos 2026: 'India on a roll; I'm more comfortable with Brand Modi than Brand Trump,' says ad guru Martin Sorrell

Sir Martin Sorrell, executive chairman of S4 Capital and advertising industry veteran, on Monday said he was more comfortable with Brand Modi than Brand Trump, describing the Prime Minister's approach as strategic in contrast to what he sees as Trump's deal-driven, disruptive style.

"India is on a roll. India was the fastest-growing economy last year, will be this year, and will be next year, according to the World Bank, which must be right," Sorrell said in conversation with Rajdeep Sardesai, Consulting Editor, India Today, at the World Economic Forum Summit in Davos.

Applying his brand-building experience, Sorrell described Brand Trump as fundamentally tactical. "Brand Trump is tactical. It's what we would call mid-funnel or lower-funnel. It's about performance in the short term, highly disruptive," he said. "Brand Modi is more strategic," Sorrell said, before expanding on Trump's deal-centric approach.

"Donald Trump is about the art of the deal. It's interesting every speech he makes, at some point in it, virtually invariably, there's some reference to doing a deal. Having cards, my cards are bigger than your cards or better than your cards."

The advertising guru linked this mindset to a broader global shift toward short-termism. "Trump is very tactical, very deal-oriented, very short-term. I just came from a discussion with several people here at Davos. A pretty gloomy discussion where the world has gone very short-term, private equity companies are short-term, venture capital companies are short-term, they want to know how they exit before they enter."

Trump's dominance of the global agenda, Sorrell noted, was evident even in Davos. "Here we are at Davos, and all we're talking about is Greenland and Trump. He's the center of attention, which is very much his objective," he said.

Modi, he argued, operates on a different time horizon. "Modi is much more long-term. He's been at it for long-term. He can carry on for even longer. He doesn't have two-term limitation. So he's taken a much more long-term view," Sorrell said.

That difference between the two leaders shapes his own assessment. "I'm more comfortable with Brand Modi than I am with Brand Trump," he said, explaining why. "Because Brand Trump used the words at the beginning of this era of transition and disruption. With Trump, it's more disruption than transition. I think with Modi, it's probably about transition disruption."

Sorrell said India's positioning reflects a deliberate balancing act. "India is playing both ends off against the middle, which I think is the right thing to do," he said.

He then widened the lens to Europe's current dilemma over Greenland, which has moved to the top of the agenda for EU leaders. "And Greenland now is on top of the agenda for the EU leaders. What are they going to do?" Sorrell asked. "Are they going to trade Greenland for peace and lower tariffs in America? Or are they going to be, as a point of principle, say, no go?"

Sorrell argued that Europe's moral position had already been weakened by its response to Ukraine. "By the way, we lost that point of principle on Ukraine when we all decided not to go full throttle. We lost the moral position on that. Now it's a slippery slope. What do you do on Greenland?" he added.

He said discussions among global leaders reflected how transactional geopolitics had become. "I was with a group yesterday of more Asian leaders, and the suggestion was, you had to buy peace with America by surrendering Greenland."