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New wave of loyalty in India – Digital & Data
Retailers and many other companies in India have been struggling with loyalty programmes as consumers have remained cold to the concept which was introduced a decade ago. However, the face of loyalty marketing in India is beginning to change as marketers are seeking to engender a new wave of loyalty to connect with the consumers and to delve deeper into their behaviour by moving beyond transactions to create effective and engaging interactions.
Today, the virtual world is gaining prominence and consumers prefer easy access to everything around them with ‘Just One Click Away’ approach. This has compelled many marketers to adopt digital as a new wave for loyalty marketing in India, using mobile phones and social media to connect with their member base, creating two–way active channels of communication.
Indian companies too are realising that the profile of their member base is changing with time. Once a realm of older and well-heeled patrons, exclusive loyalty clubs today are breaking down many of these barriers. Members are becoming younger, networked and more demanding. It is no longer about funneling seemingly special offers to a loyal customer, today, the consumers want to be heard and instantly gratified for their behaviour. They want programmes to be tailored encompassing their needs.
Whether it is airlines, retailers, hoteliers, financial services or other companies, all are using or switching to this emerging digital platform to drive consumer engagement. One of the leading low cost carriers (LCCs) in India has introduced their loyalty programme purely based on mobile – from checking of points to redeeming of points to receiving trigger-based communication. Beyond travel, this technology is also seeing a huge acceptability among the retailers from lifestyle to footwear to fine dining to QSR. Even the niche players like spa and salon, cafes and lounges and frozen yogurt are using mobile-based technology not only to connect with the consumers but also to drive involvement through two-way dialogue.
The increasing usage of smart phones among India’s core population is paving way for new technologies, and companies are focusing to capture this momentum by providing an enriching experience with a customised solution. Brands are driving loyalty strongly through social media where, today, consumers can earn points for tagging a location, reviews, comments, participating in polls and more.
In fact, one FMCG company in India is riding on this new medium to move beyond transactions and create more interactivity directly with consumers. The consumers enrolling for this programme can earn points for participation in polls, votes, referrals, reviews, recommendations and more which can then be redeemed for the goodie bags by the company. The company is trying to build a direct communication channel with the consumers who were majorly served by local store or modern trade.
This emerging technology is not only being limited to drive acquisition or engagement but also to increase retention of consumers through their purchase frequency. A growing multinational men’s apparel that is expanding its footprints in India is adopting mobile technology and social media to drive online purchases. They are introducing a mobile application which is integrated with social media to drive engagement and will also be utilised at POS for making purchases. They are designing a virtual apparels display application which will be tailored made to the historic purchase trend of the consumers. This will be integrated with the mobile application, so that the consumers can select and purchase via their mobile. Through this, the brand will be able to delve deeper into consumer insights and gain a better understanding of their behaviour.
The time has come when a greater attempt is being made by many brands to understand the consumer using smart analytics, so that the promotions and discounts being offered to the consumers are relevant and can convert to purchase action. This will help to enhance their attractiveness and keep pace with the connected consumer.
A spate of irrelevant marketing emails after signing on a loyalty programme is one of the biggest complaints by consumers, like a company sending offers about motherhood products to an unmarried customer for whom it has no relevance or ability to meet a need.
So, to counter this problem, companies are employing technological tools to gather information about the consumers that includes details beyond their demographic profile like age, frequency of visit, buying patterns, item purchase to design offers and promotions that are focused and targeted and are more likely to generate a response from the consumer.
Through this growing avenue, consumers are demanding ease of accessibility. They want offers, promotions and rewards to be easily accessible to them from anywhere whether mobile, social networking or their preferred location and more. They are also looking for seamless experience across all the different channels being used to connect with them.
Real–time offers on the mobile
Today, companies want to capture the attention of consumers while they are on the shop floor to translate into faster turnaround time. Many retailers are broadcasting real-time offers, for example, when a consumer is purchasing a product, the loyalty system will analyse the information and offer him a discount, benefit or freebie on buying that product. These coupons are immediately forwarded to their mobile for a stronger call to action.
Similarly, some apparel stores offer rewards to the consumer whenever they visit their store and tag them on social media. The system will read the information and based on their historic data will forward on the spot reward/offer on their mobile to lure them into impromptu in-store purchases.
(These are purely personal views of ICLP India general manager Mark Spicer and indiantelevision.com does not subscribe to these views)
MUMBAI: 2025 will be remembered as the year India’s OTT industry stopped chasing scale for its own sake and began reckoning with how audiences actually consume content. Completion rates fell, patience wore thin and the limits of long-form excess became impossible to ignore. In this guest column, Pratap Jain, founder and CEO of ChanaJor, traces how micro-drama moved from the fringes to the centre of viewing behaviour, why short-form fiction emerged as a retention engine rather than a trend, and how platforms that respected time, habit and emotional payoff were the ones that truly grew up in 2025.
If there is one thing 2025 will be remembered for in the Indian OTT industry, it’s this: the industry finally stopped pretending.
Stopped pretending that bigger automatically meant better.
Stopped pretending that viewers had endless time.
Stopped pretending that scale without retention was success.
What began as a quiet reset in 2023 and a cautious correction in 2024 turned into a very visible shift in 2025. Business models matured. Content strategies tightened. And most importantly, platforms started aligning themselves with how Indians actually watch content, not how the industry wished they would.
At the centre of this shift was micro-drama—not as a trend, but as a behavioural inevitability.
When OTT finally understood the time problem
For years, long episodes were treated as a marker of seriousness. A 45–60 minute runtime was almost a badge of credibility. Shorter formats were pushed to the margins, labelled as “snack content” or “mobile-only.”
That belief quietly collapsed in 2025.
What platform data showed very clearly was not a drop in interest—but a drop in patience. Viewers weren’t rejecting stories. They were rejecting commitment.
Across platforms, the same patterns appeared:
* First-episode drop-offs on long-form shows kept increasing
* Completion rates continued to slide
* Viewers were sampling more titles but finishing fewer
At the same time, shows with episodes in the six to 10 minute range started showing the opposite behaviour: higher completion, higher repeat viewing, and stronger daily habit formation.
Micro-drama didn’t win because it was short. It won because it respected time.
Micro-Drama didn’t arrive loudly. It took over quietly.
There was no single moment when micro-drama “launched” in India. It crept in through dashboards and retention charts.
By mid-2025, it was clear that viewers were happy watching four, five, sometimes six short episodes in one sitting—even when they wouldn’t finish a single long episode. Romance, relationship drama, slice-of-life conflict, and grounded comedy worked especially well.
This wasn’t disposable content. It was compressed storytelling.
In shorter formats, there was no room for indulgence. Every episode had to move the story forward. Weak writing was punished faster. Strong writing was rewarded immediately.
Micro-drama raised the bar instead of lowering it.
Where ChanaJor naturally fit into this shift
ChanaJor didn’t pivot to micro-drama in 2025 because the market demanded it. In many ways, the platform was already built around the same viewing behaviour.
From the beginning, ChanaJor focused on short-to-mid-length fictional stories that felt close to everyday Indian life—hostels, rented flats, office romances, small-town relationships, young people figuring things out. Stories that didn’t need heavy context or cinematic scale to connect.
What worked in ChanaJor’s favour in 2025 was clarity:
* A clearly defined audience
* Tight episode lengths
* Storytelling that prioritised emotion and pace over spectacle
While several platforms rushed to copy global micro-drama formats, ChanaJor stayed rooted in familiar Indian settings and conflicts. That familiarity mattered. Viewers didn’t have to “enter” the world of the show—it already felt like theirs.
Why audiences started responding differently
One of the biggest misconceptions going into 2025 was that audiences wanted shorter content because their attention spans had reduced. That wasn’t entirely true.
What viewers actually wanted was meaningful payoff per minute.
On platforms like ChanaJor, episodes didn’t waste time setting the mood for ten minutes. Conflicts arrived early. Characters were recognisable within moments. Emotional hooks landed fast.
A typical consumption pattern looked like real life:
* One episode during a break
* Two more before sleeping
* A few the next day
This is how viewing habits are built—not through marketing spends, but through comfort and consistency.
Viewers came back not because every show was a blockbuster, but because they knew what kind of experience to expect.
2025 was also the year OTT faced business reality
The other big change in 2025 was on the business side. Subscriber growth slowed. Discounts stopped hiding churn. Customer acquisition costs rose.
Platforms were forced to ask harder questions:
* Are viewers finishing what they start?
* Are they returning without reminders?
* Is this content worth what we’re spending on it?
This is where micro-drama began outperforming expectations. A well-written short series could deliver sustained engagement without massive budgets. It didn’t peak for one weekend and disappear—it stayed alive through repeat viewing.
Platforms like ChanaJor benefited because they weren’t chasing inflated launch numbers. The focus was on consistency and retention, not noise.
Failures Became Visible Faster
2025 also exposed weaknesses brutally.
Several platforms assumed micro-drama was a shortcut—short episodes, quick shoots, instant traction. What they discovered was that bad writing fails faster in short formats than in long ones.
Viewers dropped off within minutes. Episodes were abandoned mid-way. Weak stories had nowhere to hide.
Micro-drama didn’t forgive laziness. It amplified it.
The platforms that survived were the ones that treated short storytelling with the same seriousness as long-form—sometimes more.
OTT Stopped Chasing Prestige and Started Chasing Habit
Perhaps the most important shift in 2025 wasn’t technical or creative—it was psychological.
OTT stopped trying to look like cinema. It stopped chasing validation through scale and awards alone. It began behaving like what it actually is in people’s lives: a daily companion.
Platforms like ChanaJor found their space here because that mindset was already baked in. The goal wasn’t to dominate a weekend launch. It was to quietly become part of someone’s everyday viewing routine.
That shift changed everything—from release strategies to how success was measured.
What 2025 Ultimately Taught the Industry
By the end of the year, three truths were impossible to ignore:
* Time is the most valuable thing a viewer gives you
* Retention matters more than reach
* Format must follow behaviour, not ego
Micro-drama didn’t take over because it was fashionable. It took over because it fit real life.
Looking Ahead
Micro-drama is not replacing long-form storytelling. It is redefining the baseline of engagement.
Longer shows will survive—but only when they earn their length. Short-form fiction will continue to evolve, becoming sharper, more emotionally confident, and better written.
Platforms like ChanaJor have shown that it’s possible to grow without shouting—by understanding the audience, respecting their time, and telling stories that feel real.
2025 wasn’t the year OTT became smaller. It was the year it became smarter.
Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect our own.
