MAM
Pulse recreates its outdoor campaign on TV to extend communication reach through in-content ads
Mumbai: DS Group’s popular candy brand Pass Pass Pulse has announced its partnership with Whisper Media to extend its communication reach by recreating its unique outdoor campaign on TV. The campaign showcases the brand’s three variants of the candy, which were integrated into the traffic signal posts in an innovative format.
The campaign aims to deliver the idea through in-content advertising (ICA) on popular general entertainment channels.
Pulse’s three most popular flavours, litchi, pineapple, and kachcha aam, are packaged in red, yellow, and green, respectively. Using the significance of these colours in the context of traffic signals, the brand created a seamless, never-before-seen outdoor campaign under the messaging “Pran Jaaye Par Pulse Na Jaaye.”
The brand wanted to bring the same magic to the TV audience in Hindi-speaking markets to expand its reach.
Whisper ICAs are enabled to deliver brand communications in multiple formats, which brings the cross-media experience to the audience through the largest medium in the country—TV. Whisper Media has partnered with leading TV broadcasters Disney Star and Zee Network, across all their GEC platforms for HSM and regional, to bring forth this proposition.
In-content advertising digitally embeds a brand message into the content at the post-production phase and elevates the brand from the usual advertising clutter. This enables a brand to deliver a campaign without the hassle of logistics and programming in an impactful manner. The ICA campaign was delivered on the leading GEC channel—Star Plus.
Speaking on this recreation, DS Foods general manager-marketing Arvind Kumar said, “There’s nothing better than being able to replicate a campaign across different mediums which elevates recall among the target audience. We are glad to partner with Whisper Media to be able to seamlessly execute this unique campaign through in-content advertising.”
Sharing the idea behind the campaign, Whisper Media head of ad sales-North & East Vikrant Dhawan said, “We are seeing some exciting times in the advertising world where tech is enabling brands to get the attention of the viewers. In this latest campaign, we managed to organically resonate with the offerings that the product has to offer. This showcases the media multiplier effect, enabling higher message recall for the campaign.”
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.
