MAM
Rural marketing agencies form RMAAI
MUMBAI: With the growing importance of rural markets in corporate marketing strategies, there is an increased recognition of rural specialties in helping companies plan and implement their rural marketing activities. This has resulted in a number of players, both big and small entering the field in the last couple of years.
As was reported by Indiantelevision.com earlier this month, a few leading players who have been providing tremendous value added rural marketing services all across the country have come together to form the Rural Marketing Agencies Association of India (RMAAI).
Anugrah Madison, Sampark Marketing and Advertising Solutions, MART, Rural Relations along with other players like O&M Outreach, Linterland, Impact Communications, Rural Eight, RC&M, India Agrilbusiness Systems and Kripa Outdoor have come together to form RMAAI.
Anugrah Madison chairman and managing director RV Rajan will be the president of the association, whereas MART’s Pradeep Kashyap will hold the position of vice president. The association’s secretary will be Impact Communications’ Sanjay Kaul and the treasurer will be Kripa Outdoors’ R Parthasarathy.
The committee members of RMAAI are Sampark’s R Patankar, Rural Relations’ Pradeep Lokhande, Ogilvy Activation’s J C Giri, Linterland’s Dinesh Malhotra, RC&M’s Priya Monga, Indian Agribusiness Systems’ Sunil Khairnar and Rural Eight’s Amla.
These agencies have come together on a common platform and will work towards recognition, credibility and meeting the needs of the rural marketing industry.
One of the important objectives of RMAAI would be to set industry benchmarks in areas of performance evaluation and financial practices. To improve the overall understanding of rural markets by the corporate world, RMAAI will conduct seminars, workshops and conferences, besides offering guidance to Management Institutes in running courses in rural marketing. It will also undertake syndicated research in rural marketing on select topics, which will help increase the knowledge base of rural marketers, which in turn could help marketers develop better and more effective rural marketing strategies.
Rajan said, “Marketers look at rural India as a mass market, which it is not. That is the reason why we’ve not got adequate success. A lot of corporates have been talking about going rural for the last two decades, but if all of them walked the talk, we wouldn’t be forming this association today.”
Kashyap, on the other hand, said, “We hope to expand the scope of the Rural Network by including other big players O&M, Linterland etc., so that the association is completely representative of the rural marketing agencies.”
The founding members have paid a nominal fees of Rs 6000 to be a part of the association.
RMAAI also has plans of starting an award function in the near future to recognise individuals and organisations who have actively contributed to the growth of the rural marketing industry. Also on 10 and 11 November, RMAAI will be hosting a two day seminar on rural marketing in an effort to bring together all the rural players in the field under one roof, share developments in the industry as well as the advantage of being a part of the association network. “This seminar will be an important launching pad for the association,” Rajan said.
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.
