MAM
Discovery, Interference’s creativity for ‘Shark Week’
NEW YORK: This is news that should give our broadcasters some pause for thought! Discovey US is continuously thinking of unusual ways to promote its specials. Earlier this year it used the ad agency Interference Inc. to promote Walking With Cavemen which was its collaboration with BBC Worldwide.
That initiative saw 30 “cave people” taking a tour of three key cities – New York, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. More recently to create buzz around Shark Week, which aired in the US from 10-17 August, the network again embraced the alternative outdoor advertising medium.
Work done for Shark Week (Picture courtesy mediapost.com)
A Mediapost report indicates that the cities targeted this time were New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Orlando. The out of home (OOH) ads that intereference Inc. created supported print, TV and outdoor advertising. Noteworthy was an underwater ad in the shape of a great white shark approaching from below coupled with details of when the show would air. The decal, measuring 6,500-square feet, was placed on the bottom of the world-class wave pool at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas from 1-10 August.
A similar underwater ad, measuring 1,000 square feet, was installed on the pool bottom at the Royal Pacific Resort Hotel in Orlando. Another highlight were the shark bite media. Here common objects such as cars, surfboards and trashcans appeared as if they had been victims of shark attacks. The objects were placed in high-traffic areas such as Times Square and Grand Central Station in New York and Santa Monica Pier and Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. The basic message was “Shark Week Is Back.” Interference has dubbed this unique marketing style guerilla campaign.
The Cavemen campaign
Such a campaign often involves face-to-face interaction at times and places when people are most receptive to hearing about the brand. These times and places differ depending on the product, messaging, desired result and consumer mindset. Guerrilla and alternative marketing also manifests itself in unique ways for consumers to encounter a brand message. These encounters are usually media spaces that are created for the purpose of the message distribution, not traditional ‘ad buys.’ Examples include feet on the street, product sampling, publicity stunts, random free shuttle buses as well as random acts of kindness. Guerrilla Marketing is effective as it is able to deliver a relevant message to a desired individual, at an appropriate location, in a time when they are most receptive to it by any means necessary.
Coming back to Discovery, the agency claims that the Cavemen campaign was a huge success. It managed to stop traffic in almost every location. Consumers took lots of pictures with the cavemen. This translated into on-air ratings. It remains to be seen whether or not the Shark Week campaign drew a similar response.
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.
