MAM
Goafest 2017: Mindshare & Maxus win big, Dainik Jagran leads publisher category
GOA: Kick-starting the day one by popping a bottle of champagne, Goafest 2017 brought much cheer to the media, marketing and advertising fraternity. The Advertising Club (TAC) and the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) together felicitated the works of the advertising agencies with the Media and Publisher Abby Awards 2017 on Wednesday.
Mindshare India, like last year, bagged the maximum number of medals at the Media Abbys on day one of Goafest 2017. With a total of 10 medals, the agency has received two gold medals in ‘Best use of an Integrated Campaign’ and ‘Best use of Branded Content’ category, one each for its campaign for Star Plus titled ‘Nayi Soch’, and another for Dove’s ‘Dove reframes the beauty debate in India.’ The agency also won three bronze and five silver medals.
On Goafest Abby’s 2017, Mindshare South Asia CEO Prasanth Kumar said: “Topping at Goafest is definitely a great achievement. We are delighted that the series of good work across our clients are witnessing recognition. We as always get motivated when we win and we thank all our clients and partners for being the force behind our performance. For us, it is a constant that we keep evolving and redefining ourselves as well as challenging ourselves every year to ensure we deliver the best to our clients. We promise to keep this momentum continuous.”
The second top winner of this year is Maxus which took home six medals – one gold, four silver and two bronze. It received gold for their Sonata ACT campaign titled ‘When courage prevailed from 8pm to 8am campaign in the ‘Best use of Radio’ category.
The third leading agency was Madison Media bagging a total of eight medals — five silver and three bronze.
Apart from these, Dentsu Webchutney, Social Street, MediaCom Communications, Lodestar UM, Shemaroo Entertainment, ibs and Milestone Brandcom bagged one gold medal, each.
A total of 10 gold medals were given away at the Media ABBY, followed by 26 silver and 17 bronze.
In the Publisher Category, Dainik Jagran, continuing its winning streak, emerged as the winner for day one with two gold, five silver and two bronze medals. The publisher won the golds in the ‘Best promotion of a CSR’ category for ‘A newspaper galvanizes communities to revive 4000+ lakes’ and in the ‘Best brand innovation in newspapers printed or online’ for ‘Crowdsourcing Imagination to create the newspaper of the Future by the Future.’
2017 ABBYs has just got bigger and better. With 4500 entries, the Goafest ABBYs 2017 presented by the The Advertising Club and The AAA’ of I has once again seen the entire advertising and marketing community descend upon the silver sands of North Goa to celebrate excellence in creativity across media platforms and genres.
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.
