MAM
Hero Honda lines up marketing activities around the World Cup
MUMBAI: Two wheeler company Hero Honda Motors, which is a global partner of the International Cricket Council (ICC), has unleashed a slew of activities offering opportunities for fans to realise their cricketing dreams and get closer to their cricketing icons.
Hero Honda has announced the “Karizma ZMR Cricket Championship” to be hosted in Colombo, Dhaka and 75 cities spread across the country prior to the World Cup.
Spanning over two weeks, the Karizma ZMR Cricket Championship will feature cricket teams from several city colleges, who will compete to be the best in their respective cities. 28 city teams will be finally chosen for the dream-come-true opportunity to take a ‘Victory Lap’ each during a World Cup match, hosted in their city or region.
In addition, many winners will also get another opportunity – this time to pose with the World Cup trophy, during the trophy tour being organised on the sidelines of the championship.
Moreover, one additional team will be chosen nationally through an online contest. This team will be chosen based on their performance in a cricket-based video game which can be played on mobile phones and computers. And this team gets the Biggest Prize of all – they will get to take their Victory Lap in the final match of the ICC Cricket World Cup in Mumbai!
Hero Honda is also organising a tour of the ICC Cricket World Cup trophy. The trophy has already been taken to Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, and Colombo in Sri Lanka. It will now be taken to Delhi, Chandigarh and Dhaka (Bangladesh) so that fans can actually get to see the all-important trophy for themselves.
The cricket World Cup, to be played in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, takes place from 19 February – 2 April 2011.
Hero Honda Motors senior VP marketing and sales Anil Dua said, “If big time cricket is here, you can trust Hero Honda to bring in exciting innovative concepts for cricket fans and enthusiasts. Taking a Victory Lap at an international cricket match – that too at an ICC Cricket World Cup match – is any cricketer’s dream. And Hero Honda is playing the catalyst in helping young, budding college cricketers realise that dream. Does it get bigger than this! It’s our own unique way of not just raising a cheer for the game of cricket but also for the fans – who have made cricket a religion in this part of the world.”
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.
