From ads to storylines: how brands are embracing microdramas

Mumbai: Microdramas are moving onto advertisers’ radar, with some brands going beyond conventional sponsorships and advertising to integrate their products directly into the storylines. The approach remains nascent, but advertisers are testing the format to build long-term engagement with viewers.

Tata Motors Commercial Vehicles and JK Super Cement, for instance, have backed microdrama series built around narratives that integrate their products into the story.

Interest is growing as brands seek faster, lower-cost ways to create content that holds viewers’ attention across multiple episodes.

Factors driving advertiser interest in microdramas include a shift towards brand-funded storytelling and integrations, repeat engagement through serialised storytelling, the growing use of vertical video, and the relevance of regional-language content, said Diwaker Chandani, managing partner at creator marketing agency Influential India, part of communications firm Publicis Groupe India.

“Spending on microdrama has been trending upward, particularly over the last 1-2 years,” Chandani said. “That said, investment is still largely in a test-and-learn phase. The next level of growth will depend on stronger measurement and proof of incremental business impact.”

A report by strategy consulting firm Redseer projects that advertising revenue from microdramas could rise from ₹24 crore in FY26 to ₹5,000-5,500 crore by FY32. The broader microdrama market is projected to grow from around ₹2,300 crore in FY26 to ₹23,500-25,500 crore by FY32.

Brand storytelling

Tata Motors Commercial Vehicles partnered with Bullet Microdrama, an app backed by Zee Entertainment Enterprises, on Apna Superstar, a series that puts its Tata Azura vehicle into a story about a young man’s effort to build something of his own.

While Tata Motors did not disclose the investment, it said the microdrama approach was more cost-efficient than conventional branded-content initiatives and helped generate greater reach.

“Instead of a single hero film, one investment generated an entire episodic content property, social assets, regional-language versions, platform integrations and creator amplification, resulting in a longer engagement cycle and richer storytelling,” a Tata Motors spokesperson said.

JK Super Cement also partnered with Bullet on Tera Ghar Mera Ghar, a 53-episode series about a couple building their home. The campaign delivered a combined reach of approximately 25 million consumers and 93 million views across platforms, including around 40 million views through Bullet, according to the company.

“Conventional digital advertising often has only a few seconds to establish its message; an episodic microdrama allows consumers to spend considerably more time with the characters, their world and, consequently, the brand’s role within that world,” Pushp Raj Singh, group president — sales and marketing, JK Cement, said, without disclosing the investment size.

Economics of microdrama

Hillock Studio, a venture firm that helps founders build products and develop marketing strategies, estimates that microdramas command a cost per thousand impressions (CPM) of ₹800-2,000, compared with ₹1,100-4,000 for full-length web series in India across platforms such as Netflix, Prime Video and JioHotstar.

The shift towards brand-integrated microdramas also reflects the speed and cost advantages the format can offer advertisers, said Azim Lalani, co-founder and chief business officer at Bullet.

“You can go from an idea to a finished series in around 21 days. That makes the format extremely relevant for product launches, topical campaigns and brands that want to move quickly,” Lalani said.

An entire series could be produced for around ₹18-20 lakh, including distribution and social media support, while a meaningful month-long campaign could typically be executed in the ₹30-40 lakh range, depending on scale, Bullet estimates.

Audit and consulting firm Deloitte estimates the cost of producing a 10-episode microdrama season at ₹2.5-5 lakh without prominent stars and ₹7.5-10 lakh for premium productions featuring top influencers.

Despite brands increasingly turning towards advertising, India’s microdrama market remains heavily subscription-led. Subscription video-on-demand accounted for 99% of the market’s revenue in FY26, while advertising video-on-demand accounted for just 1%, according to the Redseer report. With new-viewer acquisition being expensive, microdrama platforms have so far relied more heavily on subscriptions to recover those costs.

“Today, a standalone app may spend ₹400 to ₹600 to acquire a new user in customer acquisition costs. To recover that money relatively quickly, the subscription model is best suited,” Rohan Lobo, partner and telecommunications, media and technology (TMT) industry leader at Deloitte South Asia, said. He added that advertising alone, at the current scale, may not be enough to recover acquisition costs.

Microdramas could also shift from an advertising medium to a direct commerce channel if viewers discover and buy what a character is wearing or using, Lobo said. In China, platforms are already experimenting with connecting storylines directly to product discovery and purchase. ByteDance, the Chinese technology company behind video-sharing platform TikTok, among others, has set up e-commerce as a separate division, with products embedded into storylines.