MAM
Starcom sets up consulting unit for Lifestyle MarComm
MUMBAI: Starcom MediaVest Group today announced setting up of a new specialist solutions unit that will focus on lifestyle marketing and communications.
Branded ‘C’, it will be headed by Anjana Sharma, who joined the media network in August 2006, with the specific mandate to start the unit.
Commenting on the new initiative Starcom MediaVest CEO-South Asia Group Ravi Kiran, said, “Supported by a strong economy, buoyant personal income trends and growing consumer eagerness to spend, the lifestyle products and services sector is witnessing exemplary growth. On one hand, Indians are getting richer and younger and on the other, they are no longer shy of spending on themselves.”
This trend has been noticed by many international lifestyle companies, several dozen of which have set up operations in India and many more are on their way. Simultaneously, many Indian brands are attempting to establish a strong presence in the sector.
“We see a significant opportunity in providing marketing and communication consulting service to these brands, through our dedicated sector vertical,” added Kiran.
Building off Starcom’s heritage of understanding consumers and the way they adopt categories, buy brands and influence each other, combined with the special sensitivity this sector demands, ‘C’ will provide strategy and counsel to marketers and brands in the lifestyle sector on how to communicate with an elusive group of customers and build engaging connections with them.
It will operate through the spectrum of lifestyle sub-segments – from premium and prestige to luxury and indulgence. It will leverage Starcom’s existing competencies in the area of entertainment and embedded marketing, sports and online marketing as well as mainstream media planning and negotiation.
‘C’ managing consultant Anjana Sharma said, “We are launching ‘C’ on the triple platforms of knowledge, assets and activation. Because this is a market first, we have been putting the pieces together for five months, and now we have a ready-to-go product that we are proud of.”
The unit `C’ unveiled TopDrawerSM, a proprietary research conducted by specialist consumer diagnostics company ‘the key’, amongst luxury consumers. Conducted over a period of four months, the study covers 43 C-Suite customers in Mumbai and Delhi, who have never been researched, with the objectives of segmentation analysis, understanding purchase and recommendation behaviour, media consumption behaviour and opportunity exploration.
An expert advisory board has also been formed comprising acknowledged trend spotters and lifestyle domain specialists. Called India Lifestyle Forum, this board of six domain experts, will guide ‘C’ in trend spotting, edge testingSM of lifestyle products, marketing and new idea incubation and activation.
The unit also claims to have India’s first Lifestyle test panel of 60 members across six cities which will broad test lifestyle and luxury products and services and provide feedback to marketers. The full membership of 60 is expected to be achieved by April.
MAM
IAS launches Total TV suite to boost transparency in CTV ads
New solution offers programme-level insights across platforms and publishers.
MUMBAI: In the world of streaming, what you see is not always what advertisers get and that’s exactly the problem IAS is looking to fix. Integral Ad Science (IAS) has unveiled ‘IAS Total TV’, a new suite of Connected TV (CTV) solutions aimed at bringing what it calls “linear-like” transparency to the fast-growing streaming ecosystem. In simple terms, it is an attempt to make digital TV advertising a lot less of a black box.
The offering aggregates programme-level data covering genre, ratings, language, shows and specific content from major platforms including Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount and Prime Video, along with opted-in publishers via Publica. All of this is housed within the IAS Signal interface, giving advertisers a unified view of where their ads actually appear.
The timing is hardly accidental. According to Nielsen, as of Q4 2025, 74.2 per cent of all TV viewing in the United States is ad-supported. Of that, streaming alone accounts for 45.6 per cent outpacing traditional television and cementing its position as the largest ad-supported medium. Advertisers have followed suit, funnelling premium budgets into CTV, but often without a clear, standardised view of performance or placement.
That gap is precisely what IAS is targeting. By combining content insights with media quality, supply path data and campaign outcomes, the platform aims to give marketers more control over when, where and alongside what content their ads run. The goal is not just visibility, but accountability ensuring ads land in brand-suitable environments rather than disappearing into opaque inventory pools.
The suite also promises practical gains. Marketers can access real-time, aggregated transparency across shows and platforms, streamline campaign controls across digital video channels, and leverage third-party verification to improve efficiency and pre-bid decision-making. Measurement tools extend to quality reach and incremental conversions, offering a clearer link between spend and outcomes.
At a time when high CPMs and fragmented data make CTV both attractive and complex, the push for transparency is becoming less of a luxury and more of a necessity. IAS’s move reflects a broader industry shift, where the race is no longer just for eyeballs, but for clarity on what those eyeballs are actually watching.
Because in streaming’s premium playground, knowing the content may just matter as much as owning the audience.
