17 Jul 2026
Uzbekistan's marketing market has already become an industry, but it still rests on specific people and informal arrangements. The next stage is durable rules, working standards and shared knowledge.
Aleksey Khaynovskiy is an entrepreneur and mathematician, co-founder of METER and Geomotive, and an expert in advertising technology and research. His is the perspective of someone building the market's measurement and technology infrastructure: why it is time for the industry to move from individual campaigns to shared knowledge and working standards.
Uzbekistan's marketing and advertising market has already become an industry, but its systemic foundations remain fragile.
The country has strong brands, agencies, media and technology companies. But a system is defined not by the number of players, it is defined by how closely marketing is tied to business strategy and real results. Different channels have different tasks and metrics — what matters is understanding each channel's role, assigning responsibility in advance, and being able to draw conclusions once a campaign ends. Today, marketing often remains a set of standalone campaigns and media buys, with many processes resting on specific people and informal arrangements. The market's next stage is to build durable rules and working standards.
The biggest problem right now is market fragmentation and a short decision-making horizon. As a result, product, brand and customer relationships get less attention than they deserve:
Local context and measurement are a separate issue. Translation is no substitute for genuine localization, and each channel needs its own transparent performance criteria. Overall, the market is growing faster than its professional foundation.
The legal framework exists, but predictability in how it is applied is still taking shape. The rules of the game are more than the law. What matters is that norms are applied consistently, procedures are clear, and requirements for data and new technologies are known in advance. Transparency means a rule is understood before a project begins and works the same way in comparable situations. This is not about maximum regulation — it is about a minimum of unexpected and arbitrary interpretations.
Dialogue between government and business works when business takes part in discussing the rules before they are adopted. The state protects the public interest, while the industry proposes working standards. That requires regular consultations, pilot projects and clear transition periods.
Social responsibility is not a standalone campaign — it is the alignment between what a business says and how it acts. Charity does not offset an opaque product, hidden terms or manipulative communication. In marketing, responsibility starts with an honest promise, clear terms, proper handling of data and a willingness to fix mistakes.
Marketing shapes language, behavioral norms and ideas of success — which is why business must not exploit people's vulnerabilities or deliberately mislead them. With AI and influencer content, it should be clear who created a message and who is accountable for it. Fair tenders, timely payment and respect for intellectual work are part of that responsibility too. A mature business earns on trust, and right now the lack of transparency stands in the way.
The field's intellectual potential is high, but individual talent needs to be turned into a school of its own and into exportable products. Uzbekistan combines rapid modernization with a strong local context, a multilingual audience and marked differences between the capital and the regions — for marketing, this is fertile ground for new approaches: solutions for fast-changing markets, local AI and MarTech products, and contemporary Central Asian design free of superficial stylization.
For local experience to become exportable knowledge, it has to be described, tested, published and taught. Only then does it stop being a collection of isolated cases and become an intellectual product.
Uzbekistan is capable of introducing new methodologies, technologies and terminology on its own. But independence means authorship and accountability — not isolation or renaming well-known practices. International experience should serve as a starting point, not a ceiling. A strong market knows how to take what is useful, adapt it to its own reality, and create its own solutions where the local problem is genuinely different.
Adopting a technology does not end with buying a platform: processes have to change, teams have to grow, and data practices have to be built. A methodology becomes real when it solves a specific problem, passes testing, is documented and is regularly revisited. That takes demand from business, strong technology teams, research and room for experimentation — grounded in the basic principles of safety, reliability, fair competition and respect for culture.
These questions need a broader conversation than they get today — but "broader" means sustained work, not simply more events. Marketing and advertising affect more than sales: they touch the quality of business, consumer rights, education, the urban environment and a country's ability to build its own brands. The conversation should include business, the professional community, government, universities and consumers — the goal is not complete consensus, but turning contested questions into clear decisions.
The market needs practical outcomes: a regular industry review, shared standards and open discussion of new rules. Otherwise the market will be shaped by the interests of its strongest players and by short-term objectives.
Maturity begins where an industry produces not just campaigns, but shared knowledge and norms of responsibility.