AD Agencies
ad:tech: Marketing startups to pitch for Nestlé pilot
MUMBAI: For the first time in India, ad:tech is bringing their global initiative “The Next Big Thing” to the country in collaboration with Nestlé India. The Next Big Thing intends to build a platform that brings entrepreneurs and marketing leaders together and kick start collaborations. This pitch and award initiative gives startups an exclusive opportunity to showcase their technology, win a fully funded pilot with Nestlé, as well as the coveted recognition of The Next Big Thing.
To participate in this challenge, start-ups can view and apply to the marketing briefs developed by Nestlé. The shortlisted submissions will be judged by a jury comprising of Nestlé India’s top management, venture capitalists and technology industry leaders.
Speaking on the announcement, Nestlé India head of communication & eCommerce Chandrasekhar Radhakrishnan said, “Technology is disrupting businesses and the startup ecosystem is flourishing in India with entrepreneurial spirit and other positive environmental factors. This provides a great opportunity for brands to engage with these startups and try solving business problems through technological solutions. The Next Big Thing in partnership with ad:tech is one of our efforts this year to participate in the innovation ecosystem in India and work with start-ups to delight consumers and strengthen brands. Through start-up outreach programs such as this one, we will combine the creative spirit and ingenuity of external innovators with the scale and expertise of the world’s leading Nutrition, Health and Wellness Company.”
Commenting on the partnership and initiative Comexposium India country MD Jaswant Singh said, “Leading brands and agencies across the world are looking for more innovation, and we’re extremely excited to partner with Nestlé for ‘The Next Big Thing’. We strongly believe that The Next Big Thing will be a great platform for start-ups. The design philosophy of ad:tech is to constantly innovate and serve the needs of the modern marketers. Through this challenge, start-ups have the opportunity to showcase the latest technology and most ideas in front of Nestlé and digital media professionals.”
The registration for The Next Big Thing will be open till 13 February 2017. From all the submitted entries, 10 start-ups will be selected by a jury to take part in the final pitch event which will be held on 10 March at The Leela Ambience Hotel and Residences, Gurgaon.
AD Agencies
Kevin Vaz opens FICCI-EY report with a declaration: India’s M&E industry set to breach Rs 3 trillion mark by 2027
In a keynote address at the FICCI-EY report launch, Kevin Vaz says sport, AI and the connected TV boom are driving a multi-screen revolution with no signs of slowing
MUMBAI: India’s media and entertainment industry is growing faster than the economy, reshaping global benchmarks and is on course to blow past Rs 3 trillion by 2027. That was the headline message from Kevin Vaz, chairman of the FICCI Media and Entertainment Committee and chief executive of entertainment at JioStar, who delivered the opening keynote at the launch of the FICCI-EY Media and Entertainment Report 2026 in Mumbai on Monday. He did not waste much time on caveats.
The industry hit Rs 2.78 trillion in 2025, outpacing GDP per capita growth and surpassing even last year’s bullish forecasts. Vaz described the year in three words: scale, convergence, transformation. The numbers, he suggested, were only half the story. The other half was how that growth was happening.
Digital has become the industry’s largest segment, driven by advertising, subscriptions and commerce. But Vaz was quick to puncture the familiar narrative of digital killing everything else. India, he argued, is not an either-or market. It is an AND market. Connected TV is surging. Linear television, mobile, films and print are all still expanding. AVGC, the animation, visual effects, gaming and comics sector, is emerging as a serious growth engine, opening new storytelling formats and new global revenue streams. Nothing, he said, is replacing anything. Everything is reinforcing everything else.
Nowhere is that more vivid than in sport. In an on-demand world where audiences can watch anything, anytime, Indians still show up live. “Sports don’t fragment audiences,” Vaz said. “They unite them, just on different screens.” The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 made the point emphatically. During the final, JioHotstar delivered 72.5 million concurrent streams, a global record. Group chats exploded. Families renegotiated control of the television. Advertisers, Vaz noted with undisguised relish, stopped asking where audiences were and started asking how fast they could get in.
Cinema had its own landmark year. More than 1,900 films were released, with several crossing the Rs 1 billion mark. Dhurandhar was singled out as proof that Indian audiences will still turn up in large numbers for content that grips them. Live experiences, too, are getting bigger and more immersive, though Vaz suggested the surface has barely been scratched.
Then there is artificial intelligence, which he described as quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, reshaping everything. AI is enabling personalisation, efficiency and scale, but Vaz argued its deeper significance lies in what it is doing to creativity itself. He pointed to Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh, billed as the world’s first AI-produced show, as evidence that the technology can amplify creative ambition rather than hollow it out. He also used the platform to call on Indian policymakers to engage seriously with the creative industry on AI and copyright, ensuring that creators are fairly compensated as the technology spreads.
The picture that emerges from the report, and from Vaz’s keynote, is of an industry that has stopped thinking of itself as a fast-growing emerging market and started thinking of itself as a global template. Scale, diversity and innovation, he said, are no longer in tension in India. They are coexisting, and the rest of the world is taking notes.
The Rs 3 trillion milestone is two years away. As the man who chairs the committee that shapes the industry’s policy agenda and runs the country’s most powerful entertainment platform, Vaz set the tone for the day with characteristic directness: India’s media business is not just chasing growth. It is deciding what the country talks about at dinner. That is a different kind of power altogether.
