Adtech regulation a priority for Modi govt in third term: MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Credibility of news and platforms are as important as monetisation challenges: Anurag Thakur

HUL: Meet the leaders who have emerged from "The CEO Factory"

Punit Goenka addresses Zee employees; ensures no layoffs due to failed merger

Disney's strategic sale to Viacom18 set to boost market share to 40 percent

The Leader's Edge: Storyboard18 in conversation with leaders, decision makers and disruptors

Nobody’s Perfect Retro Porsche Ad

In Conversation With Raja Rajamannar, Mastercard

Shahid Kapoor And Varun Ganjoo Speaks On PokerBaazi's Campaign

In conversation with IHCL’s Puneet Chhatwal & GroupM’s Kate Scott-Dawkins

Why are brands including e-sports in their sports marketing itinerary?

Storyboard18 x The English Nut: How to pronounce these 10 brand names

Experts' Take On Reinvention Of Ad Campaigns Through Technology

Experts Speak On Key Emerging Trends In Cannes Lions Entries

Leaders of the future have to be outstanding human beings: Nestle MD

In conversation with VMLY&R’s Hari Ramanathan

Header Menu

Latest News

Brand Makers

Gaming News

Brand Marketing

Media News

Special Coverage

Header Sub Menu

Digital Entertainment Summit

Delhi Literature Fest

Share the Spotlight

Global Pioneers Summit

Power of Purpose

The Visionaries

DNPA

About Us

Hamburger Menu

Quantum Brief

#FreeOurSkylines

Watch.Listen

Advertising

Agency News

Media

Interviews

Meta is strengthening its commitment to the Indian media agency ecosystem by leveraging emerging technologies and platforms such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Reels, and Business Messaging to help agencies unlock new avenues for growth and future-proof their strategies.

At the recent Meta Marketing Summit – Agency Edition, held in Mumbai and Gurgaon, more than 350 senior agency professionals gathered to explore the evolving digital landscape and its implications for the future of agency-client relationships. The event emphasized Meta’s mission to empower agencies to become next-generation consultancies, capable of navigating and leading the next wave of digital disruption.

The adoption of AI and Generative AI tools is accelerating across agencies in India. These tools are streamlining creative development, enabling smarter audience targeting, and speeding up A/B testing—turning agencies into agile growth engines for the brands they represent.

“The agency ecosystem, which lies at the heart of India’s digital, brand, and advertising growth, is on the verge of a massive transformation. The evolving digital landscape—fueled by the rise of AI, short-form video formats like Reels, and Business Messaging—means that agencies of all sizes must adopt new skills to grow,” said Gaurav Jeet Singh, Director, Agency and VC Partnerships at Meta India.

He added, “Automation empowers agencies to scale more rapidly; the surge in short-form, engaging formats is reshaping the creative landscape; and messaging has revolutionized how people and brands interact. We’re working with agencies of all sizes to help them transform meaningfully and become future-ready to capture new business opportunities.”

According to Meta, one such success story is Sokrati India, which leveraged Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (A+SC) to drive performance across multiple accounts. Thanks to AI-powered automation and optimization, agencies are now better equipped to deliver measurable results in an increasingly competitive market.

India has emerged as the global leader in Reels creation, producing the highest volume of short-form video content each week. With the world’s largest community of Instagram creators, the market presents a unique opportunity for agencies to merge creativity with commerce.

“Reels is now a widely adopted product and a key component of the marketing strategies for nearly every brand we work with. We partnered with India Gate Basmati Rice to execute a mixed-creators strategy, working with 20+ regional creators and major celebrities to highlight its new packaging and reach a broader audience through Partnership Ads. The brand saw a 4.5-point increase in top-of-mind awareness versus the 0.9 APAC benchmark,” said Aakriti Sharma, Client Lead at Wavemaker.

This creator-driven ecosystem is prompting agencies to evolve from siloed media or creative roles into holistic brand consultants—capable of ideating, executing, and optimizing full-funnel strategies.

Messaging is quickly becoming a cornerstone of digital transformation in India. From generating leads with “Click to Message” ads to using the Conversions API for performance tracking, agencies are embracing business messaging to boost customer engagement and ROI.

“Performance media is now central to how businesses operate, with outputs increasingly tied to business outcomes. In today’s competitive environment, it’s essential for lower-funnel KPI campaigns to test, adopt, and scale emerging technologies and formats to maximize ROI,” said Iti Kaul, Head of Digital at OMD India.

Kaul continued, “Business Messaging on Meta has proven effective in delivering KPIs, such as high-quality leads at efficient costs, and has become a reliable part of our strategy for driving business results. Given WhatsApp’s widespread use across India, including in Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets, it offers a seamless platform to explore. Click-to-WhatsApp and Messenger Ads help bring engaged users from Facebook and Instagram onto WhatsApp, driving sales and other key business outcomes.”

Meta’s WhatsApp Cloud API now powers over 70,000 Indian businesses monthly—a number that continues to rise as more brands adopt conversational commerce. In response to this trend, Meta is co-developing custom solutions for agencies. A notable example is its collaboration with AdYogi to build a product performance management platform aimed at accelerating e-commerce growth through profitable catalog ads.

<a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/brand-marketing/meta-introduces-ai-powered-marketing-tools-to-help-brands-partner-with-creators-60395.htm">Read More: Meta introduces AI-powered marketing tools to help brands partner with creators</a>

<a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/brand-marketing/meta-tests-ai-generated-comment-suggestions-on-instagram-60258.htm">Read More: Meta tests AI-generated comment suggestions on Instagram</a>

Meta’s big India play: Boosting media agencies with AI, Reels, and Messaging

When TikTok was banned in India on June 29, 2020, it left close to 200 million users orphaned. In four years, the 15-second video platform owned by the Chinese technology company, ByteDance, had changed the way Bharat made and consumed content. With the accessibility of 15 regional languages on the app, there was a TikToker born out of narrow alleyways, ghats, river banks, and forests of the country. From Jhumri Telaiya to Tirunelveli, TikTok gave a confidence booster to users across ages, regions, classes and genders. Though for many urban Indian internet inhabitants TikTok’s videos were “cringe-inducing”, it gave wings to millions to fly and breathe the air of success and fame.

After two years of TikTok ban and several other apps and formats such as Instagram’s Reels, YouTube’s Shorts, Josh, and Moj, among a few others, getting popular, the space may seem cluttered. However, it looks like TikTok believes it can still find its ground here again.

According to a report in The Economic Times, Bytedance, the parent company of TikTok, is looking to strike a new partnership in India and hire former and new employees as it seeks to re-enter one of the world's largest internet markets.

Digital experts that Storyboard18 spoke to think this could change the content game, again, in India.

The first-mover advantage

According to a report by management consulting firm Bain &amp; Company, three in four Internet users - or 600 to 650 million Indians - will consume short-form videos by 2025, with active users spending up to 55 to 60 minutes per day. More than 200 million Indians watched short-form videos at least once in 2020, with daily active users spending up to 45 minutes a day on these platforms.
Since TikTok was one of the ﬁrst movers in the short-format content market, it has an advantage, as people are familiar with its interface, says Aarushi Sethi, business head, Pollen, the influencer marketing agency of Zoo Media. She believes this might encourage original TikTokers who were on the platform to revive their proﬁles. Interestingly, millions of creators are still called ‘TikTokers’ even though they have migrated to other platforms.

Multiple media reports indicate that home-grown apps managed to absorb 97% of TikTok creators. Sethi says a lot of them might go back on the platform that gave them fame and, in some cases, money.

Omkar Joshi, founder and chief creative officer of the digital-first consulting shop, hybrid&gt;, agrees with Sethi. However, he thinks creators will play smart and not make the mistake of putting all their eggs in one basket. He further states, “TikTok made it possible for so many Indians to escape an elitist gaze. And because the base was so broad and varied, it was free of any of the biases that are seen in everyday society. None of the alternatives today have been able to successfully achieve this at the scale that TikTok did.”

However, brands will be cautious to make a move, say experts.

Building Trust


The biggest challenge for TikTok, if it makes a comeback, is winning the trust of users, creators, and brands, says Rohit Raj, co-founder &amp; chief creative officer, The Glitch. He explains, “We have heard stories of people who quit their jobs to become content creators. When TikTok was banned, people who built their content on the platform lost whatever they created overnight. Now, what is it for them to say that history would not repeat again? So, the trust factor would be a definite question mark.” He also observes that much like the pressure that Chinese brands have been taking on in India for a while, TikTok too will face the heat.

The advantage TikTok has, in the markets it still operates such as the US, UK, and Brazil, among others, is its algorithm of virality. Other global social platforms that have short formats don’t come close to that, says Raj. According to him, “Reels made a mall, and TikTok made a DMart”, a comparison that sums up the diversity of users and creators on these platforms.

Time for brands to think like creators


Brands stayed away from TikTok for the longest time. Mainly because it was too ‘massy’. “They came on the platform because they realised that the audience they were targeting spent a lot of time on the platform. Brands will go where people are spending time. If TikTok regains popularity, they would go. But, as of now, I don’t see brands going straight up and jumping onto the platform,” opines Raj.

In 2019, when TikTok’s popularity was at its height, brands like Myntra, Zara, ShopClues, and Snapdeal; entertainment companies and OTT platforms, Dharma Productions, Hungama Music, and Viu; and personal care brand Clean &amp; Clear, among others, engaged on the platform. Some large legacy brands also experimented on TikTok, Pepsi was one of them that generated billions of views for its then #SwagStepChallenge.

“If a brand wants to be on TikTok again, they have to don the hat of a creator and not of an advertiser. Otherwise, it is like buying ad space,” says Raj candidly. hybrid&gt;’s Joshi also says that brands will flock to TikTok if users will. “They (marketers) are just going to wait and watch (as usual) and the moment something becomes a thing, they'll splurge money (sometimes thoughtfully too),” he adds.

On the other hand, Pollen’s Sethi says, TikTok gave advertisers a sneak peek into what Bharat was consuming.

With regional inﬂuencers coming to the forefront, the possible re-launch of TikTok will give them access to a newer platform and may bring back the loyalists. The other thing she says is even though TikTok is still operational internationally, however, for a comeback in India, local innovation, user retention, and stickiness, will be critical. Of course, providing assurance to creators and other stakeholders that they will be adhering to Indian data privacy laws and guidelines, will be important too, she says before signing off.

REELS