MAM
Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and Facebook Partner To Launch Industry’s First Creative Playbook on Short-Form Mobile Video Strategy
Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and Facebook today jointly released a creative playbook at the MMA Forum India event in Mumbai. The creative playbook – a special MUMBAI: white paper on short-form video strategy titled ‘From a Blink to a HeartBeat’ – will help marketers and agencies push past the conventional creative practices to adapt and execute winning short-form video ad strategies and Thumbstopping creatives that are built for mobile as a medium.
The white paper combines MMA’s groundbreaking neuroscience study of mobile ads, the First Second Strategy Cognition Research, with the core principles behind Facebook's Thumbstoppers initiative to provide the advertising and marketing industry in India with its first in-depth, research-backed creative playbook focused on short-form mobile video ads strategy.
“A core guiding principle of the MMA is a commitment to science and truth in marketing for brands, leveraging future oriented research techniques and methodologies.” said Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, MMA Asia Pacific. “The neuroscience cognition research undeniably supports marketers in making better decisions around both their marketing investments and creative strategies in digital. This white-paper, authored by MMA and Facebook, serves as a unique playbook for the industry to develop both strategy and creative or mobile video advertising“.
MMA’s research about cognitive processing of advertising in a mobile environment is one of the world’s first and most comprehensive neuroscience-based studies on understanding how consumers respond to advertising on mobile. The most important insight from this study is that the cognitive process is faster than we thought, and that the human brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with mobile advertising and trigger a reaction, positive or negative. The main implication of these findings is that brands have less time than they thought to win consumers in today´s fast-paced advertising environment. This is where Facebook’s Thumbstoppers comes in.
For the last six months, Facebook has spearheaded ‘Thumbstoppers’ Program, which was launched in May with an aim of inspiring, educating, and challenging the creative ecosystem with powerful storytelling for video ads in less than 10 seconds. To help marketers make the greatest impact with their targeted audiences using short-form video, Facebook has partnered with the top advertising agencies and brands of the country.
Speaking about the whitepaper and the collaboration with MMA, Sandeep Bhushan, Director and Head, Global Marketing Solutions (GMS), Facebook India said, “The findings of the MMA ‘s neuroscience cognition research are testimony to the rationale behind Thumbstoppers. This white paper combines the comprehensive knowledge of MMA on the topic with Facebook’s study and experience with thousands of campaigns across verticals. We’ve consistently delivered business results for our advertisers, large and small, and this is an opportunity for us to now take the best-practices of Thumbstoppers even wider across the industry, helping our advertisers realize even stronger efficiencies.”
The key belief behind Thumbstoppers is that there has been a dramatic change in consumer behaviour due to mobile; people consume as well as recall content faster on mobile. With mobile becoming more pervasive the industry needs to embrace the possibility that stories that stop thumbs from scrolling, evoke emotions, and change human behavior can be told in under ten seconds. Facebook’s understanding of Thumbstoppers is built on the back of meta studies of thousands of campaigns and fine tuned by creative directors who have used them.
How to create an effective Thumbstopper Ad – The playbook for the marketer in the mobile age
1) Duration – Stop thumbs, move hearts in under 10 seconds: Thumbstoppers are brief and need to remain under 10 seconds to be effective
2) Branding – Convey your key message immediately: Thumbstoppers showcase their brands and message early on and often
3) Visuals: Show your products in action: Thumbstoppers use striking visuals to grab attention
4) Sound – Design for sound-off but delight with sound on: Thumbstoppers use visual concepts to communicate to viewers who might watch with sounds turned off
5) Opening – Make the first few visuals count: Thumbstoppers have strong opening visuals to grab attention and lock the audience in
Top-performing mobile ads have an element of surprise. By experimenting with strong design elements, one can make ads more effective. The key is to ‘Be creative, and test, learn and adapt’.
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.
