MAM
Oil’s well that ends well: Akshay Kumar champions health
MUMBAI: It’s the greeting that oils the wheels of Indian conversation: “Kaise ho? Sab theek?” Before you can say “cup of chai”, someone’s checking if you’ve eaten, how your mother is doing, and whether that nagging cough has cleared up. Health isn’t just small talk in India, it’s the entire conversation starter pack.
Fortune Refined Soybean Oil has bottled this cultural truth in its latest campaign, with Akshay Kumar playing the concerned friend who cares about your wellbeing before getting down to business. The film captures what anyone who’s visited an Indian household knows, you’re getting a health check-up whether you asked for one or not.
“In India, asking about someone’s health is not a formality, it’s a language of love,” explains AWL Agri Business Ltd. joint president of sales and marketing Mukesh Mishra. The company wants Fortune positioned not just as cooking oil, but as “a silent caretaker in every home.”
The campaign’s tagline cuts through the clutter, “Jab Sehat Badhiya, Toh Sab Badhiya” (When health’s great, everything’s great). It’s difficult to argue with that logic, particularly when the message comes wrapped in the kind of everyday scenarios that feel like watching your own family’s WhatsApp status updates.
Ogilvy South chief creative officer Puneet Kapoor, says the team aimed to reflect “one of the purest forms of care” without getting preachy. They’ve succeeded in creating something that feels less like an advert and more like a gentle nudge from a favourite aunt.
Fortune’s pitch rests on its Nutri 5 formula, which promises five health benefits: better eyesight, stronger bones, healthy cholesterol levels, antioxidants, and improved immunity. Whether these claims hold up in your kitchen is between you and your doctor, but the brand certainly knows how to speak the language of health-conscious Indian families.
As India’s number one refined soybean oil brand, Fortune reaches one in three Indian households, roughly 123 million families. That’s a lot of kitchens, and a lot of conversations starting with “Kaise ho?”
The new campaign arrives at a time when Indians are increasingly mindful about what goes into their meals. Fortune is banking on the idea that health begins where most family decisions are made: around the kitchen table, with someone asking if you’ve been eating properly.
And really, isn’t that just the most Indian thing ever?
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.
