MAM
Sony Max & Six take IPL to the fans, with on-ground activities
MUMBAI: The biggest cricketing extravaganza – Indian Premiere League – is just a couple of days away and the official broadcaster Sony Max and Six is going all out (literally) to get the fans jumping and dancing.
Kicking off the on-ground activities, the network rolled out its ‘Bulaava Express’, which is an open air bus, on the streets of Mumbai on Sunday carting along Kandivali, Carter road, Worli Sea face and Marine Drive.
This unique open air bus is designed to capture the imagination of the citizens with a host of entertaining and unique activities. Be it the impromptu ‘buckram ka chukrum’ which quizzed people on their knowledge of the tournament or ‘Bulaava Bahana’ which mandated fans to confess which ‘bulaava’ they have used to watch the Pepsi IPL, the activities left the audiences hungry for more. The journey finally ended with the specially created energetic ‘Buckram dance’ which left the people spellbound.
Speaking on the occasion, Sony Max VP marketing Vaishali Sharma says: “Bulaava Express is the perfect initiative to get the people excited about the tournament. Cricket fans were exuberant about being a part of this activity. The overwhelming response and enthusiasm of the crowd has encouraged us to take the fun and excitement to more locations.”
The ‘Bulaava Express’ will tour the country across 13 cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Chennai, Nashik, Indore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Nagpur between April and May creating euphoria for Pepsi IPL 2014. Sony Max & Six have created this unique initiative especially for the followers of the grand spectacle of Pepsi IPL.
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Apart from the ‘Bulaava Express’, plans are afoot for mall activations as well. Activities at the mall will include the ‘Buckram Dance’- A unique buckram dance done by a troupe which popularizes the campaign track and the “buckram move”, ‘Buckram ka Chukrum’- fun games/IPL based trivia to popularise the Buckram, ‘Buckram Hunt’ and ‘Bulaava Bahaana’.
The mall activation will also see a unique concept which is called ‘Buckram pe Buckram’. “This will be a giant size collar cut out of about 10 feet, here we will encourage people to come and write small notes saying “Iss baar kaunsi team ka bulaava aya hai” and stick it on the huge cut out,” Sharma explains.
Storyboard Brandcom has been appointed to look after the OOH campaign for the broadcaster with the campaign spread across 97 cities in 500 sites. WATConsult is handling the digital and social marketing for the IPL. This time around the marketing spends have seen a spike of nearly 12-15 per cent as against last year by Sony.
The broadcaster also intends to target the heartland by reaching out to more than 400 LC1 towns over the next month and a half with ‘Remote ka bulaava’. “The idea is to really get people even in the smaller towns hooked onto the game,” says Sharma. “We will also be going door to door and conducting quizzes and handing out merchandise to the winners.”
This time around, with the help of WATConsult, the broadcaster has also launched an app that will enable the fans to catch the match action on their mobiles and further build the engagement.
“The message we are sending out through the campaign is very clear, the call for the IPL brings out the attitude among the fans and translates into them running to catch the live match action from wherever they are,” Sharma expounds.
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The broadcaster is leaving no stone unturned in pushing its biggest property through its network. It has been running the broadcast campaign for over a couple of weeks now and will carry it on for another four weeks, spread across 95 channels.
On print, the broadcaster has bought spots across leading dailies like; Times of India, Nav Bharat Times, Vijay Karnataka, Dainik Saamana, Daily Thanthi, The Hindu, Vijayavani, Deccan Chronicle, Saakshi, Eenadu, Dainik Bhaskar, Divya Bhaskar, Divya Marathi, Dainik Jagran, Amar Ujala, Gujarat Samachar, Lokmat, Ajit, Anand Bazaar Patrika, among others.
The Radio campaign is spread over two weeks across 11 stations, the broadcaster has a special plan for addressing LC1 markets where it will be playing the spots on air.
“We have done some extremely interesting innovations with Radio Mirchi this year; Red FM, Big FM and Fever will also be promoting the campaign in a big way via contents and other interesting integrations,” reveals Sharma.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
