MAM
McCain Foods ropes in Karisma Kapoor as ambassador
MUMBAI: McCain Foods India, the Indian subsidiary of McCain Foods Canada, has roped in Karisma Kapoor as its first ever brand ambassador in India.
Bollywood Diva Karisma will endorse the entire range of McCain‘s Indian and International product portfolio through advertising, marketing and promotions.
Said McCain Foods India managing director Vikas Mittal managing director, “We are delighted to have Karisma Kapoor on board, as she embodies the contemporary women of today – balancing the pressures of work, children and home with grace. Today‘s women have come a long way from the days when cooking tasty snacks meant spending hours in the kitchen over a hot cook stove, having to chop and dice every ingredient from scratch. Now she keeps her frozen reserves handy to save time planning, shopping or preparing dishes, making sit-down family meals much more enjoyable.”
Karisma Kapoor said: “I look forward to partnering with McCain. Being a true-blue Kapoor, I love good food. And being a mother I know the importance of being able to create appetizing snacks for my kids in few minutes. With McCain‘s easy-to-prepare frozen products, I can serve up popular snacks like French fries & Aloo Tikki as well as innovative snacks like Potato Bites & Veggie Nuggets. Mccain is a great solution for women, whether working or homemakers.”
The company will shortly be rolling out a new campaign, featuring Karisma as a smart woman who delights her family and guests with quick snacks prepared in minutes. The concept which has been ideated by Leo Burnett is spread across all mediums including Television, Radio, Print and POS. The television campaign will be aired on channels featuring general entertainment, music and lifestyle, English movies and children‘s programs.
McCain Foods leads the fast emerging market in India for frozen French fries and Potato Specialties. The company is strengthening its India specific product portfolio with products such as Aloo Tikki, besides marking its foray into non-potato based frozen food category with products such as Idli Sambar. McCain branded retail products are most popular and are available in most modern supermarkets as well as traditional stores. The company is continuously increasing its presence in India with its competitively priced products being distributed through specialised cold chain distribution system across Tier I and II cities.
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.
