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Digital media budgets, e-commerce selling surge in 2020: MMA report

Published

5 years ago

December 16, 2020

MUMBAI: The Covid2019 pandemic has triggered a definite shift in the consumer and business landscape. The advertising and marketing industry has had to quickly adapt to the new normal, realigning monies and deploying new tools and tactics to connect with audiences; in this regard, digital ecosystem has been the biggest gainer. In fact, digital media budgets have registered a 34 per cent increase over the past several months, states the Modern Marketer Reckoner report released by GroupM and MMA India.

The report, which takes a deep dive into the business and media ecosystem of the country, underlines that 23 per cent of business respondents have focused on ecommerce selling this year.

It further states that 54 percent of businesses in India have been impacted by the pandemic, of which retail, travel and tourism have been hit the hardest. It highlights that almost 90 per cent of people are more careful about how they spend their money in the new normal. 50 per cent of people have delayed big purchases and almost 38 per cent have cut down on day-to-day expenses.

Most affected by consumers' tightened purse-strings are the discretionary categories – 77 per cent have reduced eating at restaurants, while 55 per cent have cut down on purchasing clothes and fashion accessories. Further, 48 per cent respondents have reduced spending on consumer electronics.

What has seen a positive impact are the areas related to health and hygiene – 29 per cent are exercising more at home, 24 per cent are consuming more vitamins and supplements, and 23 per cent are spending more on groceries.

With the onset of the pandemic, people stepped out of their comfort zones, tried something new, picked up diverse skillsets. Among the digital-first timers – 45 per cent streamed movies, 33 per cent used an e-learning app, 28 per cent purchased grocery online, and 22 per cent consulted a doctor online. As work from home became the norm, 43 per cent respondents utilised software to smoothen the workflow.

This year’s Modern Marketer Reckoner report focuses on two major perspectives – the consumer lens and the marketer lens. The consumer lens focuses on the theme “Nothing Is Certain” and it captures the uncertainty and the changes which happened in 2020 at various levels from a consumer’s point of view. The first half of the report talks from a consumer sentiment perspective and the impact it has had at a socio-cultural level. It also highlights the media consumption perspective, with a special focus on digital and mobile app ecosystem. This looks at the growth in the mobile and digital ecosystem in the last few months and how it has leapfrogged. And lastly, it highlights the shopping perspective, focusing on how the shopping basket has changed for consumers, the shift towards essentials and the huge increase in ecommerce as a mode of shopping.

The second half of the report – ‘Everything is Possible’ – focuses on providing a modern marketing reckoner to marketers on the key strategic tentpoles they should look at, so as to navigate the ambiguity and the uncertain business and economic landscape. It highlights the strategic pillars of modern marketing which marketers should deploy to not only deal with the current uncertainty but is a reckoner, even beyond. This part focuses on how the way consumer content has been changing and therefore how the content ecosystem is seeing the emergence of new formats and trends. Thus, it showcases and discusses how brand communication has moved from creativity to proliferation and thereby what should brands do to retool their strategies. It also highlights the growing importance of accountability in marketing and why it is more critical at times like this.

GroupM south Asia CEO Prasanth Kumar said, “The advertising and marketing industry has been encountering some fast changes in the past few years with the advancement in innovation and technology. In this current wave of uncertainty and ambiguity, it becomes even more critical for marketers to measure ROI and therefore, invest in data and technology to do the same. This year with the report we wanted to decipher the changing face of content and influencers, new communication formats and channels, and the ways to build powerful brands.”

“The reckoner underlines the marketing industry’s certainty when it comes to the rapidly expanding mobile channel,” said MMA MD APAC Rohit Dadwal. “The industry, on the whole, recognises that the modern era of the market is upon us and we need to embrace it. This new age of marketing is going to be built on tools and technology that this report helps to outline along with great examples through the lens of various industry leaders who are the torch bears of this change… helping shape the future for marketers and agencies in India and abroad.”

GroupM south Asia president Tushar Vyas said, “One of the biggest areas of impact that has emerged is the digital ecosystem. It plays a huge part in the way the business landscape of today has unfolded. We believe that modern marketers will have an advantage if they can apply deep insights to understand the changing landscape. In this period of uncertainty, we need to be more outcome-driven and mobile aligned to usher hope and dynamism into the life of the consumer again. With this report, we wanted to address the huge changes in the industry and talk about the new ways to embed data into every part of the business and decode them to get powerful insights which in turn can help brands communicate better.”

Related Topics:advertising brand GroupM marketing MMA Prasanth Kumar Tushar Vyas

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Amazon Ads maps 2026 as AI and streaming rewrite ad playbooks

Published

4 weeks ago

January 15, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

NATIONAL: Amazon Ads has laid out a sharply tech-led vision for the advertising industry in 2026, arguing that artificial intelligence, streaming TV and creator partnerships will combine to turn brand building into a more precise, performance-driven business.

At the heart of the shift, the company says, is the fusion of AI with Amazon’s vast trove of shopping, browsing and streaming signals, allowing advertisers to move beyond blunt reach metrics to campaigns designed around real customer behaviour.

“The future of advertising is not about reaching more people, but the right people with messages that resonate,” said Amazon Ads India head and vice president Girish Prabhu. “By combining AI with deep customer insights, we help brands move from broadcasting campaigns to having meaningful conversations wherever audiences spend their time.”

One of the biggest changes, according to Amazon Ads, will be the collapse of the wall between media planning and creative development. Retail media, powered by first-party data, is increasingly shaping everything from brand discovery to final purchase, pushing marketers to design campaigns around audience insight rather than internal instinct.

AI is also moving from a support tool to a creative engine. Agentic AI, which automates and accelerates production, is expected to make high-quality creative accessible even to small businesses, compressing weeks of work into hours and giving challengers the ability to compete with larger brands on speed and scale.

Behind the scenes, AI-driven analytics will take on a bigger role in campaign optimisation, identifying patterns, spotting opportunities and recommending actions that would previously have required teams of analysts.

Streaming TV is another big battleground. With India’s video streaming audience now above 600 million and connected TV users at 129.2 million in 2025, advertisers are set to treat streaming not just as a branding channel but as a performance engine, measured increasingly by sales, sign-ups and bookings rather than just reach.

Finally, Amazon Ads sees creators and contextual advertising reshaping how brands tell stories. Creators will act less like influencers and more like long-term partners, while scene-aware ads on streaming platforms will allow brands to insert hyper-relevant offers into the flow of what viewers are watching.

Taken together, Amazon Ads argues, these shifts mark a move towards advertising that is both more human and more measurable, where AI handles the complexity, and creativity does the persuading.

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Publicis India appoints Sonal Verma as Arc Worldwide MD

Published

4 weeks ago

January 15, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Publicis Groupe India has appointed Sonal Verma as managing director of Arc Worldwide India, handing the reins of its experiential and shopper marketing business to a leader steeped in live brands and real world storytelling.

Arc Worldwide, the Groupe’s specialist arm focused on experiences that nudge consumers from curiosity to checkout, sits at the intersection of creativity, commerce and culture. Verma’s mandate is to sharpen that edge as brands grapple with shorter attention spans and more complicated buying journeys.

Verma joins from Cheil India, where she spent nearly five years building and leading the brand experience practice, most recently as senior vice president and head of brand experience. Her career reads like a tour of India’s experiential landscape, with leadership roles at Momentum Worldwide, Percept D Mark, Blockkbuster Events and Showtime Events.

She has also held senior activation roles at Radio City and The Times of India, giving her a rare mix of agency, media and on-ground execution experience. The common thread has been simple: turning big ideas into moments people remember and talk about.

At Arc Worldwide India, Verma will focus on expanding the agency’s experiential and shopper capabilities, strengthening client partnerships and keeping the work firmly rooted in consumer behaviour rather than buzzwords.

With Verma at the helm, Arc Worldwide is expected to double down on ideas that live beyond screens and closer to everyday life. For an industry obsessed with clicks and scrolls, this is a reminder that sometimes the strongest connections still happen face to face.

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Barbeque Nation taps ‘milne ki bhookh’ to kick off the new year

Published

1 month ago

December 29, 2025

indiantelevision.com Team

BENGALURU: Barbeque Nation is ringing in the new year with a reminder that some cravings cannot be ordered online. The casual dining chain has rolled out a new film campaign, milne ki bhookh, pitching its restaurants as places to meet, reconnect and linger over food.

Set against a world of constant messages and missed meet-ups, the campaign leans into a simple truth: dining out remains one of the few rituals that still brings people together. Barbeque Nation positions itself as the excuse and the setting for real conversations, shared plates and unhurried moments.

Nakul Gupta, cmo at Barbeque Nation, says the brand has long been about shared celebrations. As the year turns, milne ki bhookh captures what he calls a growing hunger to meet, connect and spend time together, with food at the centre of that experience.

Created by Makani Creatives, the campaign comprises three films built around Barbeque Nation’s signature grills and desserts. The storytelling is deliberately sensorial, designed to spark cravings while nudging diners to step out and meet in person.

Pavan Punjabi, chief integration officer at Makani Creatives, says the idea stems from a familiar contradiction. People are constantly connected, yet meetings with loved ones are endlessly postponed. Milne ki bhookh, he says, is a gentle push to make time for real-life catch-ups, using food as the reason to come together, share a meal and create memories.

The campaign breaks on December 25 with the grilled prawns film and will run for two months, amplified across digital platforms. As the new year begins, Barbeque Nation is betting that the strongest appetite of all is not for food alone, but for each other.