MAM
Taco Bell gets India rooting for free tacos
MUMBAI: As over one billion people around the country are waiting with bated breath for the country’s next big match, Taco Bell, the world's leading Mexican-inspired quick service restaurant brand is rooting for India to win this cricketing season through a unique ‘Win the Cup, Win the Taco’ campaign.
The brand has introduced a new digital film as part of the campaign. The film offers a fun take on the popular ‘Jeetega Bhai Jeetega’ slogan that reverberates in stadiums during cricket matches. It shows a group of fans at a Taco Bell restaurant, who when asked what their favorite slogan for India is, burst into shouts of ‘Jeetega Bhai Jeetega…Poora India…Free Taco Jeetega! Jab India Cup Uthaega, Main Free Taco Khaayega’.
In its maiden run in the country, ‘Win the Cup, Win the Taco’ will reward Taco Bell fans in India by giving them a free taco if the country wins the final game of the tournament. You can watch the digital film here.
Speaking about the film, Ankush Tuli, Managing Director, Taco Bell Asia Pacific said, “Across the globe, consumers will find Taco Bell at the forefront of cultural moments most relevant to our fans. The new digital film for the ‘Win the Cup, Win the Taco’ campaign gives us an opportunity to engage with consumers through the sport and slogans they know and love. This cricket season, we’re rooting for free tacos for all of India and cannot wait for the team’s next big match.”
Gaurav Burman, Director, Burman Hospitality, Taco Bell’s Master Franchise Partner in India said, “What a wonderful tournament it has been! Our team has performed brilliantly and has already made us proud. We at Taco Bell India wish them well for the next few matches and hope they win the championship, so that we can celebrate their win with free tacos for all of India.”
The new campaign draws inspiration from the brand’s U.S. based baseball campaign, ‘Steal a Base, Steal a Taco,’ which promises all of America a free taco when a baseball player successfully ‘steals’ a base during a game.
As the team lifts the trophy, all Taco Bell restaurants across the country will give consumers one free taco per person, irrespective of any purchase.
Fans are encouraged to follow along on Taco Bell India’s social media channels to find out more details about the campaign, such as redemption date and time. If India wins it all, consumers can walk into any Taco Bell restaurant across 11 cities in India to receive their free taco. The offer will be subject to terms & conditions and the discretion of the brand.
MAM
AI could unlock billions for India’s $30 billion media industry, says JioStar vice-chairman Uday Shankar
JioStar vice-chairman urges industry to seize once-in-a-generation AI moment to turn India into the world’s creative capital
DELHI: India’s media industry stands at a historic inflection point. Artificial intelligence, long discussed as a technological disruptor, could now become the lever that propels the country from a domestic content giant to a global creative powerhouse.
Delivering the keynote at the IndiaAI Impact Summit, Uday Shankar argued that AI offers India a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lead, not follow, in global media and entertainment.
Shankar credited the prime minister’s vision for centring India’s growth agenda around AI and described the summit as overdue . Drawing on three decades in media, he traced the industry’s transformation from the arrival of the first newsroom computers to the launch of India’s earliest digital platforms, each wave of technology reshaping speed, scale and audience engagement.
The numbers tell a story of staggering growth. In just 25 years, India’s media and entertainment sector has expanded from a few billion dollars to become the world’s fifth-largest market, contributing more than $30bn to the economy. Television households have jumped from about 70m to over 210m, with more than 800m video consumers today.
Yet global influence remains elusive. While South Korea exported Squid Game and Parasite to worldwide acclaim, and Puerto Rico produced the most-streamed artist on the planet, India has struggled to consistently break through beyond its domestic and diaspora audiences .
The constraints are structural. Hollywood studio productions command budgets of $65m to $100m, with tentpoles running as high as $300m. The average Indian film operates on $3m to $5m . A marquee US television episode can cost $20m to $30m; an Indian serial is typically produced for Rs 7 lakh to Rs 10 lakh per episode, roughly $10,000. The capital gap, Shankar argued, has narrowed ambition and limited global competitiveness.
AI, he said, changes the equation by rewiring the three pillars of the industry: content, consumer and commerce.
On content, AI-powered production is collapsing infrastructure costs and accelerating timelines. At JioStar, the company recently produced Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh, a 100-episode live-action series delivered three to five times faster than a traditional production pipeline. The implication is stark. The remaining constraint is no longer capital, but imagination.
On consumers, AI enables conversational discovery, interactive storytelling and regionalisation that goes beyond simple dubbing to reflect India’s linguistic texture. On commerce, it unlocks granular segmentation and dynamic pricing, moving beyond the blunt instruments of subscription and advertising that have defined the industry for a century.
The prize is vast. The global media market, currently worth nearly $3trn, is projected to reach $3.5trn by 2029. India’s share remains under 2 per cent. Even a shift to 5 per cent would generate tens of billions of dollars in additional value.
But Shankar cautioned that opportunity does not guarantee outcome. He called for three commitments: self-disruption before external disruption, aggressive skilling to create AI-native creative hybrids, and policy frameworks that accelerate rather than constrain innovation.
Hollywood’s defensive posture towards AI, he suggested, offers India a rare window to design the business models and regulatory frameworks that could set global precedents. The shift in advantage, he argued, favours nations with deep cultural reservoirs and massive audiences.
The question is no longer whether India can lead in the AI age of media, he concluded, but whether it will move fast enough to claim that position.
The stories were always here. Now the technology has caught up.
