Digital
Happydent launches #HappydentSparklingSmile campaign in partnership with Smile Foundation
New Delhi: Happydent, one of Perfetti Van Melle India’s flagship brands, has partnered with Smile Foundation for #HappydentSparklingSmile, a digital campaign under which brand is urging consumers to capture candid smiles to help support the education of underprivileged children. Known for its iconic advertisements, Happydent has traditionally bought smiles to the consumer through its quirky and humorous communication centered around the benefit of ‘Sparkling Smiles’ and this campaign is an extension of the brand’s core philosophy. The endeavor to capture #HappydentSparklingSmile is based on the consumer insight that every ‘smiling selfie’ shared on social media may not necessarily be a genuine, heartfelt one.
For this campaign, the brand has partnered with the leading Indian photographers, Abhinav Chandel, Praveen Bhat, Shramona Poddar and Zaid Salman, to capture “candid sparkling smiles” around them. Under the campaign, these notable photographers have shared the images on their social handles and have also detailed the moment which led to that smile. Alongside, the brand is urging its consumers to share the candid moments on brand’s social handles through a simple process detailed out in the campaign video. The Campaign is live and has received an encouraging response from consumers with close to 60000 entries till now in over a week.
The process of participation along with campaign details can be viewed in the link below. For every candid smile picture captured and shared by consumers, Happydent will contribute Rs 10 towards the education of kids at Smile Foundation.
Elaborating on this campaign and partnership, Mr. Rohit Kapoor, Director Marketing, Perfetti Van Melle India said, “We are delighted to be partnering with Smile Foundation for this noble cause. As a responsible corporate, Perfetti Van Melle believes in giving back to the communities where we operate and we aim to make a difference to the lives of these wonderful children by providing them better access to education. The cause coheres with Happydent’s brand proposition of adding ‘sparkling smiles’ to people’s lives.
#HappydentSparklingSmile is a simple initiative at heart to ensure we are able to light up the lives of some underprivileged kids.”
Commenting on this partnership Santanu Mishra, Co-Founder and Trustee, Smile Foundation added “We are quite excited to partner with Happydent on this campaign. The idea behind this partnership is to see more and more children enrolled in schools. Despite, us having a law that makes education a fundamental right of every child between the ages of 6 and 14, the harsh reality is that at least 32 million Indian children of age up to 13 years have never attended any school, majority of them belonging to the socially disadvantaged class. As socially responsible organizations, we will together work to bring back smiles to these children”.
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.
