Digital
Burger King India onboards Havas Worldwide India as its digital partner
Mumbai: Burger King India has assigned its digital mandate to Havas Worldwide (Creative) India. As a part of this mandate, the agency will be responsible for creating cornerstone digital campaigns, social media management, and online response management, among other things.
Havas Worldwide India has been focusing on fortifying and updating its core expertise and offerings over the last two years. Havas Worldwide India grew by more than 30 per cent in 2021 across its Mumbai and Delhi offices, thanks to significant business wins such as Tata Cliq Luxury, Bel Cheese, P&G, Vivo, and Celio, to name a few. The agency has also been strengthening its teams to bring in the best talent. As the agency’s growth momentum continues in 2022, it will continue to come up with clutter-breaking work to deliver on its promise of making a meaningful difference in the lives of brands, businesses, and consumers.
Sharing his thoughts on the association, Burger King chief marketing officer Kapil Grover said, “We are excited to have partnered with Havas Worldwide India, which comes with a track record of path-breaking digital campaigns for brands across markets and categories. We are confident that their expertise and market understanding will help us deliver innovative and groundbreaking digital campaigns, thereby further strengthening Burger King India’s position to become the most lovable brand in the digital space. We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership.”
Commenting on the partnership with Burger King, Havas Worldwide (Creative) India managing director Manas Lahiri said, “In today’s cluttered digital ecosystem, only brands that come up with engaging, differentiated content make people sit up and take notice and we at Havas Worldwide India have been doing exactly that over the past few years. Burger King is one of the most audacious brands in the world today, known for creating truly innovative campaigns that become the talk of the town, and we’re confident we will be able to create more such path-breaking, meaningful work for them.”
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.
