MAM
Publicis Groupe acquires a digital agency and a consulting firm in India
MUMBAI: French global communications network, Publicis Groupe, has snapped up two Indian companies as part of its strategy to strengthen its digital offering and double the size of its India business by 2015.
The first to be gobbled is iStrat, India‘s foremost integrated digital agency. The second purchase is MarketGate, a Mumbai-based strategic business and marketing consulting firm.
“We look at talent and relevance while.making acquisitions and consulting is at the core of our business. So these two deals are in sync with our plans,” said Publicis Groupe COO and Publicis Worldwide Executive Chairman Jean-Yves Naouri.
Naouri said that India‘s talent pool and market appetite make it a lucrative destination. “We agree that India is not where we would want it to be right now. But the country shows talent and appetite which makes it extremely positive,” he added.
He also said that the acquisitions and consequent alignments of the acquired entites have been made keeping in mind the structure of the Publicis Groupe.
While Indigo is aligned with Leo Burnett, Resultrix is with ZenithOptimedia. iStrat, on the other hand, will fall under Publicis Worldwide.
iStrat will be rebranded Publicis iStrat and will operate as a unit within Publicis Modem, Publicis Worldwide‘s global digital network. Its founders, Navneet Singh Sahni (CEO) and Sonya Sahni (Head of Marketing), will continue to lead the agency.
MarketGate will retain its name and will operate within Publicis Worldwide. It will also continue to be led by founders Shripad Nadkarni (CEO) and Sharda Agarwal (Executive Director). Both iStrat and MarketGate leadership will now report into Nakul Chopra, CEO South Asia for Publicis Worldwide.
Publicis had earlier acquired full-service interactive and technology agency Indigo Consulting, which operates as a unit within the Leo Burnett Group, the creative arm of Publicis.
iStrat was founded in 2003 and provides solutions across all forms of digital marketing. The agency services a broad range of prestigious clients, including Alpha G:Corp (real estate), the Confederation of Indian Industries, Dupont (luxury accessories), Hero Corp (motorcycles), Hindware (kitchen and sanitary appliances), Maruti Suzuki, the Nasscom software trade association, and Nestle.
The agency, which is headquartered in Delhi and employs a team of 50, provides the full range of digital communications services including e-commerce store fronts, search engine optimization, social media, and rich media.
MarketGate, which was founded in 2005, delivers services in business growth planning, marketing strategy, brand positioning, portfolio strategy, brand architecture development, and marketing skills development. The agency‘s seven consulting experts aim to rejuvenate brands and power their growth by deploying marketing processes throughout their clients‘ organisations.
Its clientele includes Colgate, Dabur (foods/personal care), General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, Godrej (personal care), HSBC, ICICI (financial services/banking), Madura Garments (fashion), Mahindra & Mahindra (automobile), MTR (foods), and Radio Mirchi.
As a part of this acquisition, Publicis Groupe will also acquire MarketGate Dimensions, a subsidiary of MarketGate, providing research-based solutions to business, marketing and brand issues, with offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Its client list includes Glenmark (personal care), Kellogg‘s, Maruti Suzuki, The Walt Disney Company and Viacom 18.
“Building digital capabilities is a fundamental part of the Publicis strategy, and today‘s acquisition of iStrat and the strengthening of our digital arm in this promising market is a key step towards realising our growth goals. In addition, MarketGate is a fast-moving strategic outfit with strong skill-sets, an impressive range of clients and thorough knowledge of the Indian market and its consumers.” he continued.
“We are excited to become a part of the Publicis Worldwide network, and we look forward to tapping into its global best practices,” added iStrat co-founders Navneet Singh Sahni and Sonya Sahni.
“Today‘s deal will offer richer, more diversified possibilities to both our clients and our teams. Our experience in India‘s digital space, together with Publicis‘ considerable know-how in brand building, will create an incredibly powerful offering for both current and future clients.”
“This is a very exciting move for all of us at MarketGate,” added Shripad Nadkarni and Sharda Agarwal. “Twinning the world-class expertise of Publicis Groupe with our extensive experience of marketing and consultancy across all sectors in India will make for a very powerful combination. We‘re passionate about our clients, and we know that they will benefit from this move.”
India is currently the world‘s 16th largest advertising market, and although the country‘s economic growth has slowed somewhat in 2012, it remains over 5 per cent. ZenithOptimedia forecasts (December 2012) advertising expenditure to increase by 7.7 per cent in India in 2013.
Publicis Groupe had recently made VivaKi a separate business unit and will be available to all Publicis Groupe agencies and the market.
VivaKi was launched in 2008 to accelerate the digital transformation of Publicis Groupe and its agencies. It was created through the combined scale and leadership of Digitas, Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG), ZenithOptimedia and later Razorfish.
Fast-growing economies like Brazil, India, China and Russia are on the radar of all the global communications agencies. Publicis too is bullish about BRIC nations as these economies are called.
The French communications group had also acquired Beijing-based digital marketing company, Longtuo, to gain clout in China‘s burgeoning e-Commerce market.
It also bolstered Saatchi & Saatchi‘s digital offering in Asia Pacific by buying out local interactive agency Arachnid, which was later re-branded Saatchi & Saatchi Arachnid.
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.
