MAM
Marquees 2017: Ad club appoints HUL’s Sanjiv Mehta as jury chair
MUMBAI: Hindustan Unilever Limited CEO and MD Sanjiv Mehta will be chairing the jury for the Marquees awards in its debut year. The Advertising Club had announced the differentiated ‘Marquees 2017’ at Goafest in April.
The Awards intend to recognise brands across categories for their excellence in marketing, building sustainable and path breaking brands. Chairing the jury for the awards in its debut year will be industry thought leader Sanjiv Mehta, CEO and managing director of Hindustan Unilever Limited.
Speaking about the Marquees awards, The Advertising Club president Raj Nayak said “Brands have an inspiring role to play in society and ‘Marquees 2017’ is a great initiative constituted towards recognizing marketers and their groundbreaking campaigns that have been a catalyst of social change. Sanjiv Mehta with his experience of leading a brand at the forefront of innovation and inclusivity is sure to bring great perspective and insight into the jury deliberation process for the debut edition of this unique award.”
Mehta said “This is a great initiative from Advertising Club which looks at awarding the excellence of marketers. With increasing competition, the holistic marketing of a brand is what plays a decisive role in making the brand a category game changer. Marquees is a step towards recognizing this excellence in marketing that requires a great blend of insight, instinct and resilience. I am glad to be chairing the Jury for the first ever Marquees and am looking forward to judging some cutting-edge initiatives.”
Speaking about the awards and Sanjiv Mehta chairing the awards jury, Marquees’ chairman Partho Dasgupta said, “To cater to evolved consumers who seek effective communication, brands today are challenged to create clutter breaking campaigns that set new benchmarks in marketing. Recognizing and felicitating such marketers and their ingenuity is the Marquees. The awards is one of those rare platforms that will honor not only the brand but the brand custodians for their ideas and innovation.”
Marquees is set to be a grand affair bringing together thought leaders and industry veterans from Advertising, Marketing and Media Fraternity. The awards endeavours to evaluate and recognize success of the brands by judging them basis not only just how they advertised across platforms, but also taking into account the important factors like the pricing, distribution and purpose the brand served for the consumers at the end of the day. The awards will adjudge brands and individuals across three classifications
‘Category Awards’ honouring inspiring work under the product categories of FMCG: Foods, FMCG: Beverages, FMCG: Personal Care, FMCG: Household Care, Auto: 2 wheelers, Auto: 4 wheelers, Household Durables, Mobile Devices, Mobile Services, Banking, Insurance, E-commerce
“Special Awards”, recognizing brands which have been brought alive through great story telling and exceptional and differentiated initiatives that have redefined the category. Some of the awards in the category are “Revival of a stagnant category”, “Re-inventing for the better”, “Carving out a niche”, “Riding on an emerging wave”, “The Phoneix”, “Conquering an impregnable fortress” and “Traversing unchartered waters”.
Marquees will also give away a coveted “Green Award” which aims to honour brands that have strived and conquered, by keeping a close focus on environment sustainability.
The debut edition of The Marquees which is expected to be attended by the who’s who of advertising, marketing, creative & media is slated to premiere in August, 2017.
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.
