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IAA World Congress: Go digital, focus on new media
The much talked about 42nd IAA World Congress has come and gone and given many an opportunity to visit Russia, which is generally not on anybody’s tourist map. I am sure all delegates are reasonably happy that they made it to the Congress, whether it was for the Congress speaker presentations or the venue Russia or the opportunity to meet with advertising big wigs from around the world.
India, made its presence felt at this Congress with 47 delegates, three speakers – Vinita Bali of Britannia, K Srinivas of Bharti Airtel and Sam Balsara of Madison World; and bagging the 2010 IAA Chapter Excellence Award.
When one visits a new country, in your flight, you replay the impressions you have about the country – so images of the biting cold, vodka and a language that you can‘t understand a word of came to my mind. But on stepping out of the Moscow airport, the heat and the sun gave us a not so pleasant surprise. Since the Conference was in the Kremlin, I was kind of expecting to bump into Putin, but that was another disappointment.
But, let’s talk about advertising first. The Congress’s 38 speakers were to talk to over a thousand delegates from all over the world about the Consequences of Change taking place all around us.
If I have to sum up what industry stalwarts like Sir Martin Sorrell, Mark Pritchard, Maurice Levy and other prominent speakers had to say, I would say I have four broad take aways that all speakers touched upon in their presentations:
Go Digital and focus on new media
Add value to consumers
Increase consumer base and compete against non consumption
Use CSR as a business tool
Now going into details of what some of the speakers said, Sir Martin Sorrell gave a good overview of the advertising and marketing industry at large. He seemed upbeat about the emerging climate as reflected in WPP figures that he had seen days before the conference.
He spoke about WPP’s strategy of focusing on BRIC markets, new media and digital, and consumer insights. He highlighted eight trends that he had observed or prophesised about and said because of this the advertising and marketing industry was poised to play a more critical role in the near future:
Shift in economic power from West to East and North to South.
Overcapacity in the world and therefore a need for differentiation.
Growth and importance of digital companies. He cited the example of Google being the biggest media owner in the UK.
Growth in retail.
Internal communication and the challenge of getting people to work together.
Shift in coordination from global to local.
Importance of CSR and the use of CSR not for a social cause but more to meet a business purpose or goal.
The Government in all markets is becoming extremely important and influential and a huge spender on advertising.
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Mark Pritchard, the global marketing and brand building officer at Procter and Gamble made a pitch for brands to move from marketing to serving a purpose. He also touched upon why a brand exists (what is its purpose or soul); what does the brand stand for (its benefits or its heart); and how is the brand expressed (its execution or body). To make his point come alive, Mark shared some examples of the work they did on Pampers in Russia, based on the insight that when babies sleep well at night,they are |
active and grow up healthier; PUR, a campaign for clean water in Africa and from our very own India, the famous Gillette – Shave or Not to Shave campaign. No international conference can now be complete without the mention of this campaign! Divya, please take a bow. He also emphasized on the fact that when an organization does all these things, it boosts employee morale.
Eric Joachimsthaler, spoke very passionately on Challenger Brands. He emphasized that organisations should forget about Disruption and focus on Deep Dive. The key difference between Disruption and Deep Dive being, in Disruption companies would focus on optimizing their own value chain, focus on market sharing and competing against the next competitor. While in Deep Dive the focus is on optimizing your consumer’s value chain, focus on market creation and competing against non consumption.
He made his viewpoint come alive by giving the example of Flip, a video camera that could upload photos immediately on Facebook in six seconds and achieved 34 per cent market share in US in three years, because of understanding and capitalising on the need gap in the market. He also emphasized on the need for 365 day Communication and not 360 degree communication and the need to create social currency. Whilst Sir Martin spoke about the need for differentiation because of overcapacity, Eric felt it was no longer possible to differentiate your product in today’s fully wired and instant world.
Vinita Bali was eloquent and said that challenger brands usually have less resources, so they employ sharper strategies, act faster and make better use of scarce resources and these are the qualities necessary for challenger brands to survive.
The panel discussion on Media Opportunities in the BRIC markets, had Sam Balsara, representing India and the Panel spoke about how the only way to make the advertising business grow was to make the client’s business grow and aggressive use of new media and a better understanding of new media by agencies would help the cause.
Microsoft and 20th Century Fox made a joint presentation on how they promoted and marketed the biggest animated film of the year Avaatar, highlighting that when two giants tango together you can get delightfully surprising results.
Day 2 had Maurice Levy open the Congress and he spoke about companies‘ need to take their responsibility to society seriously and that they will be rewarded for doing that.
Rich Riley from Yahoo spoke about taking the online platform to the next level and how Creative and Media agencies could use digital to engage with consumers in a meaningful way.
Another interesting panel discussion was on The Advertising Agency Model which had representation from Group M, Publicis Groupe and Joanne Davis Consulting. The panel highlighted the lack of communication between clients and agencies, and groaned about the growing influence and power of procurement managers in agency-client relationships.
Nikesh Arora from Google, highlighted that 26 per cent of the world’s population is online and 24 hours of video is uploaded every minute on YouTube. He also said that the internet provides instant feedback, interactivity with advertisers, a borderless world and gives a notion of mass personalisation. He emphasised that the last 10 global brands have all been built online – Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
Another interesting presentation was from K Srinivas of Airtel, where he took the audience through the miraculous Airtel story of how it became the No. 1 telecom service provider in India through an innovative business model, focussing on outsourcing of core functions to overcome shortage of resources, but investing heavily on the brand.
IAA also had a special package for their Young Professional Members, which gave them an opportunity to be part of the Congress at a fraction of the regular delegate fee. 16 youngsters from around the world, including me took advantage of this offer, including five from India.
The evening entertainment organised by the IAA World Congress organisers gave the delegates a good flavour of Russian customs, from a gala dinner at The Kremlin Palace Congress Centre Rooftop Ballroom, to the Bolshoi Ballet. After the gala dinner, there was an after party on the roof top of the Ritz Carlton, at a Lounge called O2. Reminded me of our AER Bar at Four Seasons; O2 lounge gave an aerial view of the Kremlin and the Moscow skyline by night.
Moscow as a city is similar to Delhi in winter in some ways – very wide roads, majestic buildings and flowers (tulips no less). But despite the wide road, the traffic and the traffic jams make you wonder if you are still in Bombay! With the onset of spring, the lush green gardens and flowers were in full bloom, the warm weather also got most of Moscowites out on the streets, enjoying the warmth, making walking on the streets, a delight.
Quite a lot of Indian delegates were fortunate to bump into Indian taxi drivers from South India, most of whom came to Moscow 10 – 12 years ago to study medicine and because of circumstance landed up doing all sorts of businesses except medicine. They proved to be good tourist guides for us for both Moscow and St Petersburg city to show its historic sights. St Petersburg is another must see city, a one-hour flight from Moscow. The city again is very historic with many parts in the city looking a lot like Rome, but on a bigger scale.
Russia as we all know is famous for its vodka, but what many don’t know is how a Russian has his vodka. Chilled vodka is poured into a short glass and right next to it comes another glass of orange or tomato juice. Instead of mixing the two together, like many of us do, they first take a gulp of the vodka followed by the juice. And by the way Russian girls don’t drink vodka.
So on the whole, the 42nd IAA World Congress provided delegates a good overview of the state of advertising in the world today and gave me an opportunity to tick off Russia from the 100-places-to see-before-you-die list.
(The author is Madison World Business Development & Diversification Manager)
MUMBAI: 2025 will be remembered as the year India’s OTT industry stopped chasing scale for its own sake and began reckoning with how audiences actually consume content. Completion rates fell, patience wore thin and the limits of long-form excess became impossible to ignore. In this guest column, Pratap Jain, founder and CEO of ChanaJor, traces how micro-drama moved from the fringes to the centre of viewing behaviour, why short-form fiction emerged as a retention engine rather than a trend, and how platforms that respected time, habit and emotional payoff were the ones that truly grew up in 2025.
If there is one thing 2025 will be remembered for in the Indian OTT industry, it’s this: the industry finally stopped pretending.
Stopped pretending that bigger automatically meant better.
Stopped pretending that viewers had endless time.
Stopped pretending that scale without retention was success.
What began as a quiet reset in 2023 and a cautious correction in 2024 turned into a very visible shift in 2025. Business models matured. Content strategies tightened. And most importantly, platforms started aligning themselves with how Indians actually watch content, not how the industry wished they would.
At the centre of this shift was micro-drama—not as a trend, but as a behavioural inevitability.
When OTT finally understood the time problem
For years, long episodes were treated as a marker of seriousness. A 45–60 minute runtime was almost a badge of credibility. Shorter formats were pushed to the margins, labelled as “snack content” or “mobile-only.”
That belief quietly collapsed in 2025.
What platform data showed very clearly was not a drop in interest—but a drop in patience. Viewers weren’t rejecting stories. They were rejecting commitment.
Across platforms, the same patterns appeared:
* First-episode drop-offs on long-form shows kept increasing
* Completion rates continued to slide
* Viewers were sampling more titles but finishing fewer
At the same time, shows with episodes in the six to 10 minute range started showing the opposite behaviour: higher completion, higher repeat viewing, and stronger daily habit formation.
Micro-drama didn’t win because it was short. It won because it respected time.
Micro-Drama didn’t arrive loudly. It took over quietly.
There was no single moment when micro-drama “launched” in India. It crept in through dashboards and retention charts.
By mid-2025, it was clear that viewers were happy watching four, five, sometimes six short episodes in one sitting—even when they wouldn’t finish a single long episode. Romance, relationship drama, slice-of-life conflict, and grounded comedy worked especially well.
This wasn’t disposable content. It was compressed storytelling.
In shorter formats, there was no room for indulgence. Every episode had to move the story forward. Weak writing was punished faster. Strong writing was rewarded immediately.
Micro-drama raised the bar instead of lowering it.
Where ChanaJor naturally fit into this shift
ChanaJor didn’t pivot to micro-drama in 2025 because the market demanded it. In many ways, the platform was already built around the same viewing behaviour.
From the beginning, ChanaJor focused on short-to-mid-length fictional stories that felt close to everyday Indian life—hostels, rented flats, office romances, small-town relationships, young people figuring things out. Stories that didn’t need heavy context or cinematic scale to connect.
What worked in ChanaJor’s favour in 2025 was clarity:
* A clearly defined audience
* Tight episode lengths
* Storytelling that prioritised emotion and pace over spectacle
While several platforms rushed to copy global micro-drama formats, ChanaJor stayed rooted in familiar Indian settings and conflicts. That familiarity mattered. Viewers didn’t have to “enter” the world of the show—it already felt like theirs.
Why audiences started responding differently
One of the biggest misconceptions going into 2025 was that audiences wanted shorter content because their attention spans had reduced. That wasn’t entirely true.
What viewers actually wanted was meaningful payoff per minute.
On platforms like ChanaJor, episodes didn’t waste time setting the mood for ten minutes. Conflicts arrived early. Characters were recognisable within moments. Emotional hooks landed fast.
A typical consumption pattern looked like real life:
* One episode during a break
* Two more before sleeping
* A few the next day
This is how viewing habits are built—not through marketing spends, but through comfort and consistency.
Viewers came back not because every show was a blockbuster, but because they knew what kind of experience to expect.
2025 was also the year OTT faced business reality
The other big change in 2025 was on the business side. Subscriber growth slowed. Discounts stopped hiding churn. Customer acquisition costs rose.
Platforms were forced to ask harder questions:
* Are viewers finishing what they start?
* Are they returning without reminders?
* Is this content worth what we’re spending on it?
This is where micro-drama began outperforming expectations. A well-written short series could deliver sustained engagement without massive budgets. It didn’t peak for one weekend and disappear—it stayed alive through repeat viewing.
Platforms like ChanaJor benefited because they weren’t chasing inflated launch numbers. The focus was on consistency and retention, not noise.
Failures Became Visible Faster
2025 also exposed weaknesses brutally.
Several platforms assumed micro-drama was a shortcut—short episodes, quick shoots, instant traction. What they discovered was that bad writing fails faster in short formats than in long ones.
Viewers dropped off within minutes. Episodes were abandoned mid-way. Weak stories had nowhere to hide.
Micro-drama didn’t forgive laziness. It amplified it.
The platforms that survived were the ones that treated short storytelling with the same seriousness as long-form—sometimes more.
OTT Stopped Chasing Prestige and Started Chasing Habit
Perhaps the most important shift in 2025 wasn’t technical or creative—it was psychological.
OTT stopped trying to look like cinema. It stopped chasing validation through scale and awards alone. It began behaving like what it actually is in people’s lives: a daily companion.
Platforms like ChanaJor found their space here because that mindset was already baked in. The goal wasn’t to dominate a weekend launch. It was to quietly become part of someone’s everyday viewing routine.
That shift changed everything—from release strategies to how success was measured.
What 2025 Ultimately Taught the Industry
By the end of the year, three truths were impossible to ignore:
* Time is the most valuable thing a viewer gives you
* Retention matters more than reach
* Format must follow behaviour, not ego
Micro-drama didn’t take over because it was fashionable. It took over because it fit real life.
Looking Ahead
Micro-drama is not replacing long-form storytelling. It is redefining the baseline of engagement.
Longer shows will survive—but only when they earn their length. Short-form fiction will continue to evolve, becoming sharper, more emotionally confident, and better written.
Platforms like ChanaJor have shown that it’s possible to grow without shouting—by understanding the audience, respecting their time, and telling stories that feel real.
2025 wasn’t the year OTT became smaller. It was the year it became smarter.
Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect our own.
MUMBAI: The lights went out on Indian advertising this Diwali. Piyush Pandey, the wordsmith who turned bus rides and roadside tea into unforgettable campaigns, died on Friday aged 70. Just four months earlier, at the Emvies awards in Mumbai, veterans had touched his feet for blessings while young hopefuls queued for selfies. He looked frail but smiled through every encounter. Humility was his signature; genius was his secret.
Pandey never claimed special talent. His gift was simpler and rarer: he kept his eyes open. The famous Fevicol advertisement—a Jaisalmer bus groaning under passengers clinging to every inch—came from a real sighting. The magic was slapping a Fevicol poster on the back of the bus. “Keep your eyes open, keep your ears to the ground and have a heart willing to accept,” he told newcomers at Ogilvy. It wasn’t a slogan. It was scripture.
He joined Ogilvy & Mather in 1982 at 27, after failing at cricket, tea tasting and construction. When Mani Iyer, who headed the agency, introduced him to me as creative director in the late 1980s, Pandey’s deep, soft voice belied a fierce passion for the craft. Like Roda Mehta, who ran media at Ogilvy, he was generous with his time, patiently explaining the thought behind many a campaign to me. Those campaigns moved hundreds of thousands of crores worth of products off shelves over their lifespans.
His method was observation turned into emotion. The Dum Laga Ke Haisha Fevicol spot was originally made for a smaller brand called Fevitite. The Parekhs, who owned Pidilite, told him the ad was too good to waste. Reshoot it for Fevicol, they urged. He did. That single decision spawned a series of award-winning campaigns and turned Fevicol into the category itself.
His philosophy was disarmingly simple: love life. “Whether you are sipping tea from a roadside vendor or in a five-star hotel, whether you are travelling by second class or in a Mercedes-Benz,” he would say. Great ideas came from loving all of it—the chaos, the mundane, the sublime. “Be open to accepting ideas from the world. Be open to sharing ideas with the world. Learn to talk but most importantly also learn to listen.”
Pandey despised lazy advertising. Technology for its own sake was pointless; celebrities without ideas were useless. “Many TVCs are pathetic these days when they use celebrities. They are made very lazily,” he once said. For him, the idea came first. Technology could enhance it; fame could amplify it. But without a core truth, it was just expensive noise.
He believed consumers, not suits or pony-tailed creatives, made advertising great. “It’s when he or she accepts the product and emotionally bonds with it, the product becomes a brand,” he said. His advice to brand managers was blunt: stop being salesmen. Build brands, not just products.
I lost touch with him for decades as I went about building the indiantelevision.com group and all its ancillary services. Journalism and writing as I used to practice when I was younger was relegated to the background. It was during the pandemic that I reached out to him and requested him to spare some time for an online interview. To my surprise, he remembered me and he readily agreed. It was an interesting conversation about how Ogilvy was serving clients during the pandemic and how its creative edge was being maintained. We had agreed we would speak for 30 minutes, but the conversation went on for an hour. It was peppered with Pandey-isms. But that was the last time we spoke at length to each other, though we said hello to each other at advertising industry get-togethers which I rarely attended. Sadly, for me.
The man who taught India to watch, listen and love has gone silent. But his voice echoes still—in every vernacular tagline, every slice-of-life commercial, every campaign that dares to see India as it truly is. Pandey didn’t just sell products. He gave an entire nation permission to speak in its own accent, to find poetry in the everyday, to believe that the roadside and the boardroom could meet and make magic.
The lights dimmed this Diwali, but the spark he lit—built on observation, fuelled by empathy, sustained by love—will burn for generations. That’s not advertising. That’s immortality.
MUMBAI: Once, they blazed across the Indian media landscape with the swagger of pioneers. Entrepreneur-led behemoths like Subhash Chandra’s Zee Entertainment, Kalanithi Maran’s Sun TV, Prannoy Roy’s NDTV, and Raghav Bahl’s Network18 weren’t just market leaders — they were institutions, holding their own even as foreign giants circled hungrily.
Today, those stars are fading. Some have already fallen.
Network18 and TV18 are now firmly in the grip of Reliance Industries and Disney Star. NDTV, long a bastion of editorial independence, is under the control of the Adani Group. Its founders — Roy and Radhika — have exited stage left, their names now relics of an era that once prized journalistic idealism.
Zee, once the crown jewel of Indian broadcasting, is barely hanging on. The Chandra family — once majority owners — now clutch a meagre four-odd per cent stake. It’s a dramatic fall from grace fuelled by Subhash Chandra’s ill-advised adventures into infrastructure. To bankroll these forays, he pledged Zee shares, opening the gates to lenders who came calling. The result: a sharp dilution of promoter ownership and a credibility crisis. The failed merger with Sony’s Indian arm, Culver Max Entertainment, only added insult to injury — scuppered reportedly due to concerns about Zee’s financial hygiene. A company once viewed as squeaky clean had its reputation muddied.
Sun TV, the fourth of the old guard, is also showing cracks. Helmed with iron discipline by Kalanithi Maran, it long stood as a symbol of stability. But the facade is now under strain. A family feud has burst into public view, with brother Dayanidhi Maran accusing Kala of wresting control of Sun TV through backdoor share acquisitions. Legal notices have flown, regulatory filings issued, and the company insists all was above board. Still, some reputational damage has been done — and the gossip mills are churning.
The result is a media map being redrawn in real time. Where once these founders shaped the narrative, today they’re either sidelined, embattled, or ousted. And as corporate titans and conglomerates take over, the question is whether passion-led media can survive in an era of balance sheets, bottom lines, and boardroom power plays.
India’s media isn’t short on ambition. But nostalgia alone won’t stop the sun from setting on yesterday’s giants.
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MIB sets OTT accessibility rules, mandates captions and audio description
Boney Kapoor acquires remake rights of Tamil political satire Thalaivar Thambi Thalaimaiyil
Netflix India names Rekha Rane director of films and series marketing
Zabeen signs off from TV9 after shaping the network’s public voice
Dhawan steps up to bat for Delhi’s grassroots sports push
Orient Beverages pops the fizz with steady Q3 gains and rising profits
Cheekatilo shines in the dark with record debut on Prime Video
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