MAM
AdAsia to focus on the uncertainties in the new world
NEW DELHI: About 1500 delegates from India and overseas are expected in the capital early next week for the 27th AdAsia being held in India after a gap of eight years.
Around fifty of the world‘s top experts in the world of marketing, media and advertising will share their wisdom and experiences during the meet being held from 31 October to 3 November at the Taj Palace Hotel.
The meet is being held on the theme of ‘Uncertainty: the new Certainty‘ and will have around 18 sessions on various subjects apart from the grand opening and closing ceremonies. The speakers will include around 45 from overseas.
Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan will inaugurate the meet and the closing will feature PepsiCo chairperson and CEO Indra Nooyi in conversation with Omnicom CEO John Wren.
The last Congress hosted by India was in 2003 in the pink city of Jaipur and was considered a landmark event. AdAsia 2011 is being organised under the aegis of the Asian Federation of Advertising Associations (AFAA).
The theme “Uncertainty: The New Certainty” underlines the dynamic world that is currently at an inflection point witnessing a realignment of global economic leadership. Post the global meltdown, Asia leads the world on the path of recovery, thus attracting attention from the world over, according to AdAsia 2011 chairman and Mudra Group MD and Group CEO Madhukar Kamath.
The sessions will be conducted by global stalwarts of the corporate, marketing, advertising media and communications community that will explore the business ecosystem and understand the nature of disruption. Time tested tools which have never failed the industry along with new tools, methods, applications and ever booming digital medium will be discussed in detail. The topics have been selected to rouse debates on concerns vital to the marketing, advertising and media fraternity.
Some of the subjects being taken up are: The Game Changers, Creative Asia, Decoding the New Age Consumer, Future of Management, From Chat rooms to Twitter, Media Fragmentation – How to Navigate through traffic?, Disruptive Branding / Away from Herd Marketing, Art of Storytelling in Multi-screen environment, Building Brands in a Trust Deficit World, Global Ethos: Managing Unpredictability across circumstances of Life & Business, The Pursuit of Big Ideas in the Age of Now, and Marketing 3.0 – New rules of Engagement.
Some of the speakers are: A Salman Amin (EVP and CMO, PepsiCo); Chris Thomas (Chairman and CEO of BBDO in Asia, Middle East and Africa & Chairman of Proximity Worldwide); Anna Bernasek (Writer and Journalist); Nitin Paranjpe (CEO & MD, Hindustan Unilever Limited & EVP South Asia, Unilever); Harish Manwani (COO, Unilever); Arvind Rajan (MD and VP of Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) at LinkedIn); Ronda Carnegie (Head of Global Partnerships at TED); Kate Day (Communities Editor, Daily Telegraph Online); Ram Charan (Business Consultant, Speaker and Author); Akira Kagami (Executive Advisor & Global Executive Creative Advisor, Dentsu Inc.); Thirasak Tanapatanakul (Worldwide Chairman, Creative Juice); Duncan Goose (Founder & MD, Global Ethics Limited); Joseph V Tripodi (EVP and chief marketing & commercial officer, The Coca-Cola Company); Kitty Lun (Chairman & CEO, Lowe China); Koichi Yamamoto (GM, Global Solutions Center, Dentsu Inc.); Michael I. Roth (Chairman & CEO, Interpublic); Pankaj Ghemawat (Global Strategist, Professor, Author and Speaker); Irfan Mustafa (Chief Leadership Development Officer, Yum! Brands Inc. & MD, Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey, Yum! Restaurants International); and Piyush Pandey (Executive Chairman and Creative Director, South Asia, Ogilvy & Mather India).
Sidelights will include lunches and dinners in specially created sets depicting Indian Royalty, the Streets of Delhi in the Opening Gala dinner, and a Vietnamese evening. Taiwan and Thailand are to pitch to hold the AdAsia 2015.
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.
