MAM
WPP Media is Asia’s “Media Agency Office of the Year”
MUMBAI: WPP Media India has added another feather to its cap by gaining recognition in the Asia Pacific region.
WPP Media India, comprising of operating units MindShare, Maximize and MindShare Fulcrum, pocketed the Best Agency Office of the Year Award at The Media Magazine‘s annual Asia Pacific agency awards ceremony on 12 December 2002 in Hong Kong.
According to an official release, the award was given for the strength of the firm’s remarkable business performance, media innovation and new business record.
And to top it all, WPP Media India beat back competition from the the ponytail types, the creative hotshots. Four of the five finalists were actually creative agencies like DD Needham HongKong and Leo Burnett – with WPP Media being the only media specialist agency. It adds credence to the firm’s claim of being the largest and the best specialist media agency in the country.
The release also stated that the award is a great recognition of the way in which the agency has capitalised on its inherited strengths to put even a greater distance between itself and its competitors.
Since its launch in India 11 months ago, WPP Media’s different operating and specialist units have won 43 of 53 business pitched, 40 per cent of all EMVIES awards and also won the Unilever Worldwide Communication Channel Planning Gold, as per the official release.
The agency’s ability to leverage its huge volume and resources across its network of six locations seems to have persuaded clients to award business its way.
But more crucially, its philosophy of driving quality and not just pricing, is beginning to find many takers amongst the advertisers – in a market fixated just by rates and deals, says a corporate press release
.
Its parent company WPP’s backing from day one enabled the company to get its business model right, and its investment in large scale research for consumer insights, tracking results and econometric modelling to determine RoI on advertisers’ media investments has begun to change market practices.
WPP Media is India’s largest media investment management group with billings in excess of Rs 15 billion, stated the official release. It has three operating units MindShare India, MindShare Fulcrum and Maximize that provide media planning, buying & research services. The specialist services are provided through its Advanced Techniques Group, M Digital, Media Consumer Insights Group, BroadMind & WPP Outdoor.
Part of the WPP Group, one of the world’s largest communications services companies WPP Media has 70 offices in 51 countries throughout the USA, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific.
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.
