MAM
WPP inks global partnership with Acquia
MUMBAI: WPP has inked a global partnership with digital experience company Acquia to offer clients a full-service digital marketing and technology solution.
The new partnership brings together WPP’s existing Acquia partners – which include Globant, Hogarth, Mirum, Possible, Rockfish, VML and Wunderman – under the umbrella of the WPP-Acquia Alliance.
The WPP-Acquia Alliance is the world’s largest Acquia Certified partner and has two Acquia MVPs. Its members will draw on Acquia software, training and certification, collaborate on new business pitches, and share project resources.
Under the agreement, WPP agencies will provide creative, UX and development resources to Acquia clients, while Acquia will provide its open cloud platform to the WPP-Acquia Alliance to deliver projects. The WPP-Acquia Alliance is part of WPP’s Technology Partnership Program, an initiative led by chief digital officer and chief strategy officer Scott Spirit to coordinate and promote the Group’s relationships with key providers of marketing technology services.
Acquia provides an open cloud platform for building, delivering and optimising digital experiences. Organisations rely on the Acquia Platform to unify content, community and commerce. The company harnesses the open source content management system Drupal, which was created by Acquia founder and CTO Dries Buytaert. Drupal is used by many of the world’s largest organisations. The Acquia Platform provides a multi-site management solution, continuous support, and an environment for developing and maintaining Drupal sites.
WPP chief digital officer Scott Spirit said, “The growth of the ‘API economy’ is changing marketing, and clients require the ability to integrate existing technologies, data sources and media into a central platform. WPP is committed to working closely with technology leaders, and the creation of the WPP-Acquia Alliance gives us an open source digital experience practice at a time when the market is growing rapidly.”
“We began working with WPP agencies five years ago, and today our combined teams are working together on five continents, and unlocking the creative freedom to launch amazing digital experiences for their clients. The combined WPP-Acquia team, and the disruptive business they’re building, will deliver transformative outcomes to those organizations that are thinking ahead to a mobile-first, browserless world,” added Acquia CEO Tom Erickson.
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.
