MAM
Milestone Brandcom forays into rural marketing with Milestone Outland
MUMBAI: Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising and media company Milestone Brandcom has expanded its footprint with a communication division dedicated to low income and rural consumers Milestone Outland.
It has appointed Ajay Sundaram to the post of country head and vice president of this new division. The outfit will have a team of 50 members operating pan-India within a month from launch.
“At Milestone, we believe in investing in talent, knowledge and insights. We want to help the brand reach its customers wherever they may be. Therefore we felt the need to go rural. Milestone believes it is essential to gain an understanding about the impact of these elements to succeed in the Indian rural markets. Our future growth strategy involves offering this service to our existing and new client‘s. Therefore we have appointed established experts in the field of rural marketing who are equipped with the skills of surviving in these markets,” commented Milestone Brandcom founder and managing director Nabendu Bhattacharyya.
He reveals that the intention of starting this division is to challenge the current status quo in rural consumer communications.
Marketers focus is shifting towards low income consumers in tier 2 and 3 towns as the next level of growth is expected from smaller towns. India‘s rural population comprises of 12 per cent of the world‘s population presenting a huge, untapped market. Taking into consideration the population density in rural India, it offers vast opportunities that brands cannot afford to disregard.
The Indian rural market consists a variety of mind-sets, cultures, and lifestyles. More than 70 per cent of India‘s population lives in villages. The size of the market increases many fold with the coupling of the LIC (Low Income Consumers) market.
It offers a huge opportunity for the media and advertising industry. There lies a massive availablility potential among these consumers because of the increasing disposal income and awareness levels. Studies have shown that the rural consumers across all income segments exhibit marked tendency to spend on premium products which are backed by strong brand values, where they correspond to their own aspirations and quality needs. These consumers are the future for brand‘s survival & sustenance in Indian markets.
According to the McKinzey Report, India will be the 5th largest consumer market by 2025 and income levels will almost triple. Rural consumer communications is therefore a growth strategy for Milestone Brandcom. Milestone Brandcom has over 100 active brands in its roster; it is a natural extension of the company‘s offerings from OOH, events-promotion, retail solutions and rural consumer communications.
“Increasing brand consciousness and disposable incomes has made the rural consumer more demanding and selective in his purchase behaviour. Rural markets demand a sustained effort by brands to expose the consumers to the products via activities related to brand building and product acceptance. We plan to reach out to the low income rural consumers and give them an opportunity to understand the various choices in terms of brands and products via continuous penetration through different modes of OOH advertising. To effectively succeed in the markets, campaigns have to be tailored to requesting the consumers to keep in mind the nuances of their language, dialect and customs prevailing in their region,” said Ajay Sundaram.
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.
