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2012 : A year of agency consolidation : Anita Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media India and South Asia
India because it is English speaking, in addition to all the other factors, has every global brand, executive and company vying for a place in the sun. Exchange rates and need of funds coupled with the revered Silicon Valley philosophy of getting bought has made buying of media assets, namely smaller agencies, very lucrative. They called it ‘Consolidation’ and this phenomenon was big in 2012.
Consolidation seems to be the name of the game with agencies today and has caused a lot of excitement with the media too. It signifies growth, scale, of having arrived, of expansion – resources, fresh finance, services, markets, leverage and professional management, for the partners. Sure, it includes all of it and monopolistic rates for the biggies.
With a sluggish global economy, emerging markets are havens for international companies, advertising having dried in their primary markets. This environment has been great for a bear run to pick up preferred stocks — digital is A list — at the best price to scale up the portfolio and create volume. Economies of scale drive this from all sides – agency, client, target audience, brand and along with the online ad world being truly flat, it makes perfect business value for groups with deep pockets or who wish to be right at the top.
Customers want it too, more so planning and buying over creative as did Marriott International. With global presence it needs a global agency from the ‘best’ aspect of brand understanding and inventory.
These are the Pros and they are far more. It builds market share, creates brand opportunities, allows buying options and deals, has finance and human resource, markets and clients can be leveraged, knowledge and systems are at the core and so on.
However the Cons part is not without its challenges – internal and external.
Internal Challenge
The acquisition culture shock has far reaching effects on work output, people morale and also unknowingly to their client . The essential attractive part that defines them comes from their environment. Chances are this could get lost with the change of culture.
- Independent or smaller agencies are more nimble having fewer or no bureaucratic networks of process, reporting and structure.
- Competitive and enterprising they go to the client with a ‘less is more‘ approach; redefine the brief and some come up with radical solutions.
- For their survival they are democratic and encourage creativity from across the board.
- Opposition to mandated thoughts is not career suicide.
- There is more focus on ideas over targets, while targets never lose sight
- There is more interaction and integration with the boss and across teams.
- Even smaller clients get the attention of the boss.
The adjustment factor takes place from both parent and network, working fruitfully only when financial and human value is accrued.
External Challenge
The other aspect is monopoly and stifling of competition.
Also talent moves to the highest bidder. They cut their teeth and shift; which can lead to boxed horizons right in formative years, as agencies get more specialised and the ‘gurus’ do not really interact with them.
As business increasingly goes to the behemoths that command better rates, use their network and media relations; small and medium sized agencies are restrained from delivering their best work. In the long term this does not auger well for client or industry and certainly not for the agencies who put their best foot forward.
2012 in many ways was a landmark year of endurance for media in India, in yet another dismal twelve months of depressed global and local economy.
Traditionally, when markets do not perform the first thing that gets cut is secondary expenditure, marketing and adverting first. The overall growth from 2011 was about 8 per cent; even the festive seasons did not see the spurt of good times as also the duration of activity which was more curtailed.
To note is that from this 8 per cent not more than about 2 per cent would be new advertisers or channels, attributed towards new brands or media vehicles. The major share is rate increase in cost of purchase.
“It is not the strongest of species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin
2012 taught agencies yet again to be more responsive to change:
Resourcefulness
Advertisers with their experience of recessionary years have learnt to deliver more with less. But 2012 brought to the fore that this might be here to stay for a longer time and have learnt to work around the client within their budgets and deliver.
New Media and Clients
Digital and mobile are now an essential part of a clients marketing plan. They ask for it directly or need to be led towards it. Most have already been approached by at least 2-3 agencies or are already being serviced. They know they want to be up there but many are either not savvy enough or not sure exactly what should be done. Agencies, who force too detailed a brief and asking the client what exactly they want, stand to lose the business to a smaller incumbent.
Performance, frequency capping and changing of creative’s, altering the ad in real time; alternate ad formats using content and sponsorship have gained prevalence for clients especially those focused on digital; and all are learning fast.
Working without TAM
For the first time since its inception almost a decade ago, TAM stopped, chaos was anticipated but clients trusted their agencies and agencies did their job. Advertising continued, inventories were bought, plans were auctioned and the results after the data was released justified that TAM was a report card for good performance not the sole reference point of disbursement of client investment. The “GUT” did return.
Digitisation
Finally, the much awaited digitisation set in and 2012 will be a milestone year for TV in India. While it is not complete it moved at a faster pace than people actually expected. Viewers have been sensitised to ‘pay’. It will open alternate revenue streams, create new and differentiated content as also patterns of viewing and grow the platform.
Integration & Specialisation
Integrated & Innovative solutions are the flavour of the season. Agencies are positioning themselves as integration specialists along with dedicated teams for clients to become their extended marketing arm in the true sense. Different communication touch points impacting the different stages of the purchase funnel are being looked at as key differentiators.
Agency Marketing
More agencies are coming to the fore and marketing themselves, availing the opportunity the industry media and marketing associations afford them. They are more present, more vocal with a shifting mindset from even the more restrained ones.
2013 is not going to change the economic or advertising scenario. We should see an overall growth of about 9 per cent but when you break it, it shows how lean advertising break-even is and the positives and negatives of economies of scale.
However, these are realities the industry must contend with. Given its past record, agencies large and small will deliver some great work and value to most of their clients.
Though what will not change are the growth targets both for top-line and bottom-line.
Lets wish for happier times going forward. As they say there is no harm in wishing for the best!!
MUMBAI: 2025 will be remembered as the year India’s OTT industry stopped chasing scale for its own sake and began reckoning with how audiences actually consume content. Completion rates fell, patience wore thin and the limits of long-form excess became impossible to ignore. In this guest column, Pratap Jain, founder and CEO of ChanaJor, traces how micro-drama moved from the fringes to the centre of viewing behaviour, why short-form fiction emerged as a retention engine rather than a trend, and how platforms that respected time, habit and emotional payoff were the ones that truly grew up in 2025.
If there is one thing 2025 will be remembered for in the Indian OTT industry, it’s this: the industry finally stopped pretending.
Stopped pretending that bigger automatically meant better.
Stopped pretending that viewers had endless time.
Stopped pretending that scale without retention was success.
What began as a quiet reset in 2023 and a cautious correction in 2024 turned into a very visible shift in 2025. Business models matured. Content strategies tightened. And most importantly, platforms started aligning themselves with how Indians actually watch content, not how the industry wished they would.
At the centre of this shift was micro-drama—not as a trend, but as a behavioural inevitability.
When OTT finally understood the time problem
For years, long episodes were treated as a marker of seriousness. A 45–60 minute runtime was almost a badge of credibility. Shorter formats were pushed to the margins, labelled as “snack content” or “mobile-only.”
That belief quietly collapsed in 2025.
What platform data showed very clearly was not a drop in interest—but a drop in patience. Viewers weren’t rejecting stories. They were rejecting commitment.
Across platforms, the same patterns appeared:
* First-episode drop-offs on long-form shows kept increasing
* Completion rates continued to slide
* Viewers were sampling more titles but finishing fewer
At the same time, shows with episodes in the six to 10 minute range started showing the opposite behaviour: higher completion, higher repeat viewing, and stronger daily habit formation.
Micro-drama didn’t win because it was short. It won because it respected time.
Micro-Drama didn’t arrive loudly. It took over quietly.
There was no single moment when micro-drama “launched” in India. It crept in through dashboards and retention charts.
By mid-2025, it was clear that viewers were happy watching four, five, sometimes six short episodes in one sitting—even when they wouldn’t finish a single long episode. Romance, relationship drama, slice-of-life conflict, and grounded comedy worked especially well.
This wasn’t disposable content. It was compressed storytelling.
In shorter formats, there was no room for indulgence. Every episode had to move the story forward. Weak writing was punished faster. Strong writing was rewarded immediately.
Micro-drama raised the bar instead of lowering it.
Where ChanaJor naturally fit into this shift
ChanaJor didn’t pivot to micro-drama in 2025 because the market demanded it. In many ways, the platform was already built around the same viewing behaviour.
From the beginning, ChanaJor focused on short-to-mid-length fictional stories that felt close to everyday Indian life—hostels, rented flats, office romances, small-town relationships, young people figuring things out. Stories that didn’t need heavy context or cinematic scale to connect.
What worked in ChanaJor’s favour in 2025 was clarity:
* A clearly defined audience
* Tight episode lengths
* Storytelling that prioritised emotion and pace over spectacle
While several platforms rushed to copy global micro-drama formats, ChanaJor stayed rooted in familiar Indian settings and conflicts. That familiarity mattered. Viewers didn’t have to “enter” the world of the show—it already felt like theirs.
Why audiences started responding differently
One of the biggest misconceptions going into 2025 was that audiences wanted shorter content because their attention spans had reduced. That wasn’t entirely true.
What viewers actually wanted was meaningful payoff per minute.
On platforms like ChanaJor, episodes didn’t waste time setting the mood for ten minutes. Conflicts arrived early. Characters were recognisable within moments. Emotional hooks landed fast.
A typical consumption pattern looked like real life:
* One episode during a break
* Two more before sleeping
* A few the next day
This is how viewing habits are built—not through marketing spends, but through comfort and consistency.
Viewers came back not because every show was a blockbuster, but because they knew what kind of experience to expect.
2025 was also the year OTT faced business reality
The other big change in 2025 was on the business side. Subscriber growth slowed. Discounts stopped hiding churn. Customer acquisition costs rose.
Platforms were forced to ask harder questions:
* Are viewers finishing what they start?
* Are they returning without reminders?
* Is this content worth what we’re spending on it?
This is where micro-drama began outperforming expectations. A well-written short series could deliver sustained engagement without massive budgets. It didn’t peak for one weekend and disappear—it stayed alive through repeat viewing.
Platforms like ChanaJor benefited because they weren’t chasing inflated launch numbers. The focus was on consistency and retention, not noise.
Failures Became Visible Faster
2025 also exposed weaknesses brutally.
Several platforms assumed micro-drama was a shortcut—short episodes, quick shoots, instant traction. What they discovered was that bad writing fails faster in short formats than in long ones.
Viewers dropped off within minutes. Episodes were abandoned mid-way. Weak stories had nowhere to hide.
Micro-drama didn’t forgive laziness. It amplified it.
The platforms that survived were the ones that treated short storytelling with the same seriousness as long-form—sometimes more.
OTT Stopped Chasing Prestige and Started Chasing Habit
Perhaps the most important shift in 2025 wasn’t technical or creative—it was psychological.
OTT stopped trying to look like cinema. It stopped chasing validation through scale and awards alone. It began behaving like what it actually is in people’s lives: a daily companion.
Platforms like ChanaJor found their space here because that mindset was already baked in. The goal wasn’t to dominate a weekend launch. It was to quietly become part of someone’s everyday viewing routine.
That shift changed everything—from release strategies to how success was measured.
What 2025 Ultimately Taught the Industry
By the end of the year, three truths were impossible to ignore:
* Time is the most valuable thing a viewer gives you
* Retention matters more than reach
* Format must follow behaviour, not ego
Micro-drama didn’t take over because it was fashionable. It took over because it fit real life.
Looking Ahead
Micro-drama is not replacing long-form storytelling. It is redefining the baseline of engagement.
Longer shows will survive—but only when they earn their length. Short-form fiction will continue to evolve, becoming sharper, more emotionally confident, and better written.
Platforms like ChanaJor have shown that it’s possible to grow without shouting—by understanding the audience, respecting their time, and telling stories that feel real.
2025 wasn’t the year OTT became smaller. It was the year it became smarter.
Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect our own.
