Tamagna Ghosh & Ankit Bhatia on seismic transformations in entertainment industry

In an exclusive interaction with Adgully, Tamagna Ghosh, MD (APAC), Trailer Park Group, and Ankit Bhatia, Executive Director and Co-founder, White Turtle Studios (a Trailer Park Group company), speak about how Trailer Park Group is pushing the boundaries of innovation within India’s dynamic entertainment ecosystem and the broader APAC market. As a global leader in entertainment marketing and content production, Trailer Park Group has consistently delivered cutting-edge campaigns across OTT, cinema, gaming, music, and sports. Reflecting on the brand’s 2024 performance, Ghosh and Bhatia highlight the achievements in creating impactful campaigns tailored to the Indian and APAC markets. They also provide insights into Trailer Park’s growth strategy for India, shedding light on plans to deepen its presence and leverage the country’s untapped potential.

Furthermore, the conversation explores the key business streams that are driving growth, with a deep dive into the evolving marketing trends across OTT, cinema, gaming, music, and sports. The duo also emphasized the importance of understanding regional nuances to craft campaigns that resonate with diverse audiences.

Looking back at 2024, what have been some of the key achievements for Trailer Park Group in India and the broader APAC region?

Tamagna Ghosh: 2024 has been a landmark year for us, filled with groundbreaking campaigns that showcased our creative expertise and strengthened relationships with key players in the entertainment industry.

Winning Our First Clio for Prime Video: We earned our first Clio Awardfor a Pulp Fiction-inspired campaign for Prime Video’s documentary, Cinema Marte Dum Tak, a testament to our ability to merge innovative storytelling with bold, genre-defining creative work.
Netflix’s Heeramandi – Our tentpole 360-Degree Campaign: We were entrusted as the central creative strategy agency for Netflix’s key tentpole, Heeramandi. This marked our first full-fledged 360-degree campaign for Netflix, where we collaborated closely with their marketing team, leading the core communication thinking and execution for the highly anticipated series.
Prime Video’s Citadel – A Cross-Continent Collaboration: For Citadel, we were the AV partners for Prime Video, furthering our long-standing relationship with Raj & DK and Prime Video. This project was particularly unique as it brought together our India-based AV team and our US-based specialised trailer team. The collaboration enabled us to deliver work with an international creative edge, tailored for both local and global audiences.
The Kapil Sharma Show (Season 2) – A Massive Netflix Collaboration: Our second major collaboration with Netflix this year was for The Kapil Sharma Show (Season 2). Acting as the main creative agency, we partnered with the Netflix team to drive the strategic and creative thinking behind the campaign, resulting in content that resonated deeply with Indian audiences.
Jio Studios’ Brand Identity Unveiling: One of our most prestigious and ambitious projects in 2024 was working with Jio Studios’ leadership to unveil their new brand identity. This six-month-long project involved endless hours of ideation, design innovation, and the use of cutting-edge technology. Our collaboration with acclaimed music director Shashwat Sachdev added a distinctive auditory layer to the visual storytelling, making it a truly standout achievement.

Groundbreaking Work for Korean Titles

In the APAC region, we created groundbreaking campaigns for Prime Video titles in Malaysia/ Indonesia and Netflix Korean titles, including Sweet Home. These campaigns showcased our ability to deliver visually stunning, culturally resonant marketing that connected with Korean and global audiences alike, further cementing our presence in the burgeoning K-content space.

These campaigns underscore our ability to deliver strategic thinking, design excellence, and world-class creative execution while adapting to diverse formats, platforms, and audiences. They also highlight our growing influence in India’s entertainment landscape and our commitment to raising the bar with every project.

India is one of the fastest-growing entertainment markets in the APAC region. What’s your strategy for expanding Trailer Park’s footprint in India especially considering the unique challenges and opportunities India presents compared to other markets in the region?

Tamagna Ghosh: India’s diversity and scale present immense opportunities and challenges, and our strategy is built on combining global expertise with hyper-local relevance.

Strengthening Key Partnerships: We’re deepening relationships with Netflix India and Prime Video India, Jio and other streaming players, delivering integrated campaigns for tentpole titles while expanding to regional and genre-specific projects.
Regional Focus: We’re investing in localized campaigns across multiple languages and tapping into India’s regional OTT markets to connect with diverse audiences.
Emerging Sectors: With India’s growing gaming and experiential markets, we’re leveraging our global gaming studio, Dark Burn, to craft cinematic gameplay trailers and immersive fan experiences.
Technology and Talent: We’re using tech and AI to create scalable, interactive campaigns while nurturing local talent to combine cultural understanding with global creative practices.

By focusing on regional adaptation, innovation, and partnerships, we aim to expand Trailer Park’s footprint and redefine entertainment marketing in India.

How do marketing strategies for entertainment content in India differ from those in other APAC countries, and what regional nuances are important to consider?

Ankit Bhatia: India is uniquely complex and exciting for entertainment marketing due to its scale, diversity, and audience behaviour. Here is what sets India apart:

Multi-Lingual and Regional Diversity: With over 20 languages and hundreds of dialects, campaigns must be hyper-localized to resonate with regional audiences while staying true to the core creative idea. A single piece of content often requires multiple trailers, posters, and campaigns that feel native to each audience while retaining the core creative idea. This is far more intricate than markets where a single language serves the entire region.
Tradition Meets Modernity: Urban markets demand digital-first, global-standard campaigns, while Tier 3, Tier 4 cities thrive on emotionally-driven storytelling and traditional mediums like TV and radio. Marketers need a dual-track strategy.
Emotional and Cultural Connection is Paramount: Indian audiences respond to content that is relatable, aspirational, and culturally anchored—leveraging festivals, traditions, and themes like family and relationships for deeper engagement. Content marketing must incorporate regional festivals, traditions, humour, and values to feel authentic.
India’s Digital Explosion and Mobile-First Audience: India’s rapid digital growth, fuelled by affordable data and widespread smartphone adoption, makes it unique as a mobile-first market. Content consumption is driven by platforms like YouTube, Instagram Reels, Moj, ShareChat and WhatsApp. Marketers must therefore craft campaigns that are optimized for low data usage and smaller screens, and are highly shareable, leveraging platforms where virality is organic and quick.
The Rise of Regional Influencers and the Creator Economy: With massive content churn across OTT, TV, and cinema, campaigns need to focus on creative differentiation, AI-driven personalization, and platform-specific strategies to stand out.
Word-of-Mouth and Community Power: India thrives on community conversations and word-of-mouth recommendations, making it essential to create campaigns that spark organic buzz.

Trailer Park is known for its work across OTT, cinema, gaming, music, and sports. Which of these domains is currently leading for the company in India, and what trends are you seeing in entertainment marketing within these sectors?

Tamagna Ghosh: In 2024, Trailer Park Group focused on strategic storytelling, immersive fan experiences, and global-local synergy to help content stand out across TV, OTT, cinema, and gaming. For OTT and TV, we delivered tailored 360-degree campaigns for Netflix’s Heeramandi and The Kapil Sharma Show, and Prime Video’s Citadel, combining platform-specific assets, audience insights, and localized messaging.

In cinema, we prioritized high-quality trailers, motion posters, and key art to capture attention with cultural relevance. For gaming, we deepened collaborations with our global studio Dark Burn to craft gameplay trailers and cinematic videos, while building branded partnerships with e-sports companies to create engaging fan experiences.

Leveraging AI-driven tools, we streamlined workflows, scaled campaigns globally, and personalized content for diverse regions. By merging creativity, innovation, and audience understanding, we ensured our campaigns cut through the noise and made a lasting impact.

Trends in Entertainment Marketing

Hyper-Localization: Campaigns tailored for diverse regional audiences are becoming the norm, with content adapted for multiple languages and cultural nuances.

Platform-Specific Content: Short-form content for platforms like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, is increasingly integral to engaging younger audiences.

Immersive Experiences: AR, VR, and interactive campaigns are redefining fan engagement, especially for tentpole projects.

Gaming on the Rise: Gaming and e-sports are emerging as high-growth sectors, with demand for cinematic gameplay trailers and branded fan experiences growing rapidly.

Data-Driven Creativity: AI and analytics are playing a significant role in creating personalized, impactful campaigns that resonate across India’s diverse audience base.

While OTT and cinema dominate today, gaming and experiential marketing are fast becoming focus areas, presenting exciting opportunities to innovate and expand.

Could you share an example of a campaign that has truly resonated with Indian audiences? What made it so effective?

Tamagna Ghosh: One of our most impactful campaigns in India was for Netflix’s series Heeramandi. Our integrated marketing strategy combined hyper-localized content with global storytelling, resonating deeply with Indian audiences. This approach contributed to Heeramandi becoming the most-viewed Indian series on Netflix in its first week, with 4.5 million views and 33 million viewership hours, trending in the Top 10 across 43 countries.

The campaign’s effectiveness stemmed from several key factors:

Cultural Relevance: We crafted narratives that authentically reflected India’s rich heritage, aligning with the series’ historical setting.
Multi-Platform Engagement: By leveraging various digital platforms, we ensured widespread reach and interaction with diverse audience segments.
Visual Excellence: High-quality visuals and compelling storytelling captured attention, creating a lasting impact.

This campaign exemplifies our commitment to creating culturally resonant and engaging content that appeals to both local and international audiences.

How do you incorporate emerging technologies or new trends, such as AI or data-driven insights, into your entertainment marketing strategies?

Ankit Bhatia: Emerging technologies like AI and data-driven insights are now central to creating impactful entertainment marketing strategies. At Trailer Park, we utilize generative AI in the back end for audience segmentation, analytics, creative presentations etc thereby significantly reducing turnaround times while maintaining high quality outputs.

For instance, AI helps us understand what type of content resonates most with specific demographics, enabling us to craft campaigns that are both relevant and emotionally engaging.

Trailer Park has worked with major global names like Netflix, Prime Video, and Warner Bros. How do these partnerships influence your strategies for the Indian market, and do you have any future collaborations in the pipeline for India?

Tamagna Ghosh: Our partnerships with Netflix and Prime Video have been pivotal in shaping our strategies for the Indian market, highlighting the value of long-term collaboration built on trust, exceptional creative work, and consistent service delivery. With Prime Video, we have a deep-rooted partnership that extends beyond India to APAC and MENA, reflecting the trust earned through the quality of work delivered by our AV and design teams. This relationship has allowed us to scale our efforts regionally, ensuring that the creative excellence Prime relies on is consistent across diverse markets.

With Netflix, we are proud to be global partners across multiple workflows. In India, we’ve led integrated campaigns for some of their biggest tentpole titles, including Heeramandi and The Kapil Sharma Show with more coming up in 2025, while also collaborating closely with Netflix’s global teams on marketing production workflows. This dual engagement enables us to seamlessly blend global insights with local relevance, delivering campaigns that resonate deeply with audiences while meeting Netflix’s high creative benchmarks.

Beyond Netflix and Prime, we are proud to work globally with Max, Disney+, Paramount+, and Apple TV+, crafting campaigns that bring their content to life and connect with audiences worldwide. These partnerships demonstrate our ability to deliver innovative, engaging, and culturally resonant campaigns across diverse platforms and markets.

The faith these clients place in us is a testament to our relentless commitment to creativity, innovation, and service excellence. Looking ahead, we are excited to deepen these relationships while exploring new collaborations in India’s growing entertainment ecosystem. By continuing to push creative boundaries and deliver cutting-edge campaigns, we aim to set new benchmarks for entertainment marketing both locally and globally.

As the Indian entertainment ecosystem continues to evolve, what key trends do you foresee shaping the future of entertainment marketing, and how is Trailer Park planning to adapt to the changing consumption habits of the Indian audience, particularly in terms of content formats and platforms?

Ankit Bhatia: The Indian entertainment industry is undergoing a seismic transformation, driven by rapid digital penetration, increasing preference for short-form content, and the growth of regional storytelling. Alongside these changes, the shift towards personalized, platform-specific campaigns are defining the future.

At Trailer Park, we’ve built a reputation for reliability through our unwavering commitment to delivering exceptional service. Our clients value us not just for the creative edge we bring, but for our ability to execute consistently at scale, ensuring that every project – whether a regional adaptation or a global release – meets the highest standards. This dependability has enabled us to deepen trust and expand our partnerships across a diverse portfolio of clients.

We are also scaling up our operations to meet growing demand, especially in the realm of high-volume, scaled production. With a strong foundation in entertainment, we are now leveraging our expertise to expand into brand marketing, collaborating with global and regional brands outside the traditional entertainment sphere. This strategic diversification allows us to innovate and apply our storytelling expertise to campaigns that transcend industries while continuing to deliver on our promise of efficiency, quality, and creativity.

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