AD Agencies
Omnicom and JioStar launch in-content ad programme for Nivea
Cross-screen campaign embeds brand placements directly into TV and OTT scenes for the first time
MUMBAI: Forget the awkward cut to commercial. Omnicom Media India has teamed up with JioStar and Whisper World to stitch advertising directly into the storyline, launching a unified in-content ads programme across linear television, OTT and connected TV, with Nivea India as the guinea pig.
The campaign, run for Beiersdorf’s Nivea brand, slots brand messaging into the gaps between scenes rather than between shows, betting that viewers who skip, mute or scroll past traditional ad breaks might still sit through a moment baked into the plot itself. The placements ran inside daily soaps and general entertainment programming across Star Plus, Colors, Star Pravah, Star Jalsha, Star Vijay, Star Maa, Asianet and Colors Kannada, with a 15-second solus slot split into two insertions of seven and eight seconds apiece, nestled inside 22-minute episodes.
The same content ran in parallel on JioHotstar, covering both subscription and ad-supported tiers across mobile and connected TV, giving Nivea a single coordinated push across every screen Indians actually watch on these days.
The technology behind it comes from Whisper’s in-content ad tools, built through its joint venture with Palo Alto-based Rembrand, layered atop audience intelligence from Omnicom’s Acxiom TV segments to match brands with the right shows and scenes.
Kartik Sharma, chief executive of Omnicom Media India, said consumers are growing “more intentional” about what they watch and where, particularly inside premium streaming environments, and that the tie-up lets brands “stay connected with audiences” through content itself rather than leaning solely on conventional ad slots. LS Krishnan, chief executive of Whisper World India, was blunter about the problem being solved: grabbing attention in an “attention-deficit era” demands precision on both reach and frequency.
Mahesh Shetty, head of entertainment sales for television at JioStar, framed it as advertising catching up to how people actually watch now, calling the format proof that cross-screen reach and contextual storytelling can be stitched together without breaking immersion.
Shweta Dalal, marketing director at Nivea India, leaned into the warm and fuzzy pitch, saying the brand wanted to feel “natural and meaningful” rather than interruptive, and that being woven into a story viewers already love makes Nivea easier to remember and trust.
Measurement is already under way, covering reach, frequency, GRP and opportunity-to-see metrics, with brand lift studies in the pipeline to gauge recall and consideration. Omnicom and JioStar say the plan is to roll the format out across more Beiersdorf brands and a wider slice of JioStar’s catalogue, with SVOD and connected TV getting first dibs as premium streaming audiences swell.
Subtle, it is not. Effective, the numbers will eventually tell.
