MAM
Top television advertisers in first quarter of 2017
BENGALURU: The Music genre represented solely by Indian music company Super Cassettes Industries (Super Cassettes) was the third largest TV advertiser in terms of ad insertions during the first quarter of 2017 (weeks 1 to 13, Saturday 31 December 2016 to Friday 31 March 2017).
The biggest TV advertising genre is of course the FMCG genre followed by the confectionary genre represented also by a sole player – Cadburys India Ltd., (Cadburys). As a matter of fact, all the genres except for FMCG were represented by one advertiser only in the weekly top 10 list.
Analysis of Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly data of top 10 Advertiser Across Genre: All India (U+R): 4+ Individuals, shows that 18 advertisers from six genres were present at least once (frequency) in the thirteen weekly lists of top 10 advertisers. The author has categorised advertisers into the following major genres: FMCG, Confectionary, Music, Online, Politics and F&B.
This paper must be read with a caveat: It deals only with the players present in Broadcast Audience Research Councilof India (BARC) top 10 lists of advertisers and brandsper week. The sums/percentages of other advertisers/brands other than those indicated in BARC’s top 10 lists have not been considered/mentioned in this paper during the period under consideration and those numbers could be more/higher. Combined weekly insertions represent the total number of insertions of an advertiser or a brand or a genre during the eleven week period under consideration in this paper.
Cadburys was present in the top 10 advertisers list during all the first 13 eleven weeks of 2017 with combined weekly insertions of 3,20,084.
Super Cassettes was present in BARC’s list for 10 of the first 13 weeks of 2017. FMCG companies occupied 100 of the possible 130 spots during the period. The Food & Beverages genre represented again by a sole entrant – Coca Cola India Ltd was present in the list for 3 weeks, the online genre represented by Amazon Online India Pvt Ltd (Amazon) and the politics genre represented by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were present in the list for two weeks each.
Please refer to the figure below for the combined weekly impressions of each genre list during the first quarter of 2017.
18 advertisers were present in the weekly top 10 advertisers list. Five were present in the top 10 advertisers list for all the first 13 weeks of the year. Among them, FMCG major Hindustan Lever Limited (Lever) was by far the largest advertiser that was present at the pole position during all the first 13 weeks of 2017. Lever had combined weekly insertions of 13,83,094 during the period under consideration. FMCG player Reckitt Benckiser (India) Ltd (Reckitt Benckiser) was the second largest advertiser during the first thirteen weeks of 2017 with 6,18,910 ad insertions followed by PatanjaliAyurved Limited with 3,60,911 insertions. Confectionary player Cadburys was fourth, while FMCG player was Procter and Gamble.
Please refer to the chart below.
MAM
VML India lands two finalist spots at Cairns Hatchlings 2026
The Mumbai agency is back in Australia with two teams, a UN brief and 24 hours to impress
MUMBAI: VML India is heading to Australia again. The Mumbai-based creative agency has secured two finalist spots at the Cairns Hatchlings 2026 competition, one in the Audio category and one in Design, making it the only Indian agency to have reached the finals in both editions of the contest since its launch in 2025.
Four people will make the trip. Senior copywriter Shilpi Dey and senior art director Raj Thakkar will compete in Audio. Art directors Shabbir and Shruti Negi will go head-to-head with the world’s best in Design. The finals take place at the Cairns Convention Centre from 13th May, culminating in an awards ceremony on 15th May.
The work that got them there is worth examining. For the Audio category, Dey and Thakkar tackled a brief for LIVE LIKE MMAD with a campaign called Inner Voice, Interrupted. Using spatial audio techniques, the campaign recreates the overwhelming self-doubt that descends after a long workday, physically panning negative thoughts left and right before cutting the noise entirely to reveal a confident inner voice. Strategically targeted at commuters via Spotify during evening rush hours, the campaign reframes the hours after work as an opportunity for personal growth and charitable action.
For the Design category, Shabbir and Negi worked on a brief for Canteen’s Bandanna Day, a campaign highlighting how cancer pushes teenagers out of their own defining moments. Using a pixelated design language to create stark contrast between a blurred world of isolation and a focused world of connection, the campaign, titled The Flipside of Cancer, shows teenagers fading into the background of birthdays, skateparks and school proms. As a Canteen bandanna appears, the blur flips and the teenager snaps back into sharp focus.
Kalpesh Patankar, group chief creative officer of VML India, made no attempt to disguise his satisfaction. “We are immensely proud to see our teams consistently excel on the Cairns Hatchlings platform since its inception,” he said. “They have masterfully tackled challenging briefs across diverse categories, demonstrating both layered storytelling and a unique creative approach. This exceptional teamwork is truly inspiring.”
Dey and Thakkar, returning to the finals after last year’s run, were candid about the demands of the audio medium. “It’s one of the most demanding mediums, where we only have a few seconds to capture a listener’s world with sound alone, so absolute clarity is essential,” they said. “The true measure of creative work is its ability to create positive change, and our audio submission was made to help those who need it most while encouraging people to silence the inner voices that hold them back.”
Shabbir and Negi, competing in Design for the first time, described the experience as “a completely different beast.” “We see it as an opportunity to showcase our expertise, raise the bar, and challenge ourselves in new ways, while also learning from creative minds from across the globe,” they said.
In Australia, the four finalists will face a live 24-hour brief from the United Nations before presenting in a live pitch session. Twenty-four hours, one brief, one shot. VML India has been here before. It knows exactly what is at stake.
