MAM
HBO targets 25-30% ad revenue growth; inks unique deal with Maruti
MUMBAI: As the English entertainment channel scene gets more competitive, the challenge for the players is to innovate both on the programming and on the advertising side. HBO is looking to do just that.
The channel, which is targetting ad revenue growth of 25-30 per cent for this year, is doing a unique stunt with Maruti. This is for its original film Undefeated which airs on 6 September and deals with the life of a boxer.
Maruti’s logo, as the sole sponsor, will appear throughout the film’s duration. There will only be one ad break during the entire movie. Says HBO country manager South Asia Shruti Bajpai, “There will also be an opening and a closing spot. Maruti will use the initiative to promote its three brands – Baleno, Swift and Grand Vitara. This is the first time this kind of an initiative will be done by an English movie channel. It allows us to innovate by offering more than just spots. It gives Maruti a superior and exclusive environment.”
Bajpai adds that this is a one off deal and is an experiment just like dubbing was last year. HBO will also up the ante as far as original shows are concerned. Till the end of the year, it will introduce an original show almost every month. Earlier this month it had introduced the Western themed Deadwood. The fourth season of Sex And The City is currently airing.
Next month it will kick off Huff. Starring Hank Azaria and Blythe Danner, it deals with a psychiatrist and his family. In October, Carnivale returns for a second season. In December, the channel will air the critically acclaimed six and a half hour mini series Angels In America.
Bajpai says, “We have the raters and the differentiators Our original shows help us to take our content to another level in terms of quality. Not all our shows appeal to everyone. Sex And The City rated well with women but some men did not care for it. The same case will be with Angels In America where some viewers will enjoy its complexity and others will not. There are some viewers that only like our blockbusters. We will be airing The Matrix Revolutions next month. In the coming months we will be airing the second and third installments of The Lord Of The Rings.”
Angels In America offers a snapshot of life in New York in 1985. It is split up in two parts – Millennium Approaches and Perestroika. It deals with several themes – homosexuality, aids, alienation, political hypocrisy, fantasy and irreversible change. Al Pacino plays a lawyer who will initially not admit that he is not something as weak as a homosexual. Streep excels in five roles including a rabbi priest and a mother whose lawyer son played by Patrick Wilson comes out of the closet and admits that he is gay.
MAM
How beverage brands are rethinking marketing strategies for weather-led demand
SLMG Beverages Private Limited joint managing director Paritosh Ladhani.
MUMBAI: As Sun climbs up the hemisphere, summer has clearly arrived in India. On 7th March 2026 Delhi registered a maximum temperature of 35.7 degrees Celsius which is the highest reading logged for the first week of March in the last 50 years. Climate Change has been prolonging summers by causing earlier spring warming, delayed autumn cooling, and more frequent, intense heatwaves that persist for much longer periods.
In an endeavor to stay ahead of the curve, Beverage Brands are shifting from fixed seasonal marketing tactics to weather responsive strategies backed by data-driven insights, flexible campaigns, and diversified portfolios to capitalize on unruly temperature spike. In 2025, India’s beverage market experienced a massive, heat-triggered surge with carbonated drinks and ice cream volumes spiking 20–25 per cent in the March quarter itself on the back of hottest February in 125 years.
Clearly campaign timelines are being advanced to reap the seasonal shift in line with the jumping mercury. In the Indian context where Cricket is nothing short of religion, big ticket tournaments like T20 World Cup, Indian Premier League, ICC Champions Trophy provide plethora of opportunities to calibrate marketing campaign designs and associated business strategies to associate refreshment with community viewing both outdoor and indoors. A new trend that has taken the world by storm is that of booking the theatres for bonhomie viewing. It has also opened avenues for joint marketing initiatives by the Multiplex and Beverage Brands.
Price disrupting small potions and value packs tend to drive significantly higher volumes owing to volumetric flexibility and affordability to the consumers. Ramping up of cold supply chains for transit and at point of sales (POS) are strategic business imperatives that again define success of beverage brands.
In the era of AI and Big Data it is easy to track and calibrate messaging based on daily or weekly weather changes. Geo-targeted digital advertisement campaigns are also being run during heatwaves to make the business and marketing imperative very contextual. These pre-emptive strategies fueled by real time data and technology immensely help beverage brands to adjust supplies to the areas that are likely to generate more demand.
Novelty brings premium to the FMCG Sector and Beverage Brands are no exception. Newer SKUs build up excitement in consumers besides imparting the scope of frequent revitalization of brand marketing campaigns. Ensuring continuum of supply chain across material suppliers, logistics providers, distributors/wholesalers, and retailers become a strategic business strategy imperative for beverage brands during peak season.
Carbonated drinks among other beverages including packaged mineral water sell like hotcakes in summers, a period where holiday season gives big impetus to sales volumes. Tying up with air carriers railways, amusement parks, malls, convention centers for inclusion in the onboard beverage deck also holds a big window of opportunity for brands.
Limited period diversification into special summer categories entailing juices and functional beverages to capture the broader hydration market is also a business cum marketing imperative that beverage brands eye on. This also brings to fore the responsible side of the brand placing the compass on wellness of consumers.
Seasons are cyclic, hence summers are inevitable. Further, due to anthropogenic climate change, summers surely have been staging prolonged appearance that keep bringing beverage brands on to their drawing boards frequently for strategizing business and marketing campaigns that are agile, refreshment-focused, visually dominant in retail, affordable, and optimally promoted through seasonal campaigns in above and below the line media.
