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As Connected TV (CTV) adoption increases in India, advertisers and agencies are encountering new challenges in campaign planning and execution. At the third edition of the e4m Connected TV Conference, Russhabh R Thakkar, Founder and CEO of Frodoh, outlined how his company is attempting to streamline this process through a data-driven platform.
Thakkar, a digital advertising professional with over a decade of experience, began his career as a media planner and later managed marketing spends exceeding Rs 1400 crore. He launched Frodoh six years ago with the aim of addressing complexities in digital advertising, particularly in CTV, digital out-of-home, and retail media.
According to Thakkar, “Fifty million households are already on CTV and the next wave is coming fast.” He explained that around 10 per cent of India’s 500 to 600 million smartphone users form the digital consumption audience, and these users are increasingly turning to smart TVs for content consumption. This number is expected to reach 100 million in the next few years. Current annual advertising spend on CTV is estimated to be around Rs 6000 crore.
While audience migration is evident, planning methods have not kept pace. Thakkar said that “planning used to be intuitive and tedious, now it needs to be instant and informed.” Traditional media planning often relied on guesswork and manual processes. Even with more data available, planning remains time-consuming and fragmented due to the variety of platforms and devices involved. Frodoh’s solution is a planning tool that “gives you a media plan in less than one minute.”
The tool has been trained on data from roughly six thousand campaigns, including both successful and unsuccessful ones. Users begin by entering campaign details such as objectives, target geographies, age groups, timelines, and budgets. The system then suggests appropriate audience cohorts and channel options. Users can edit these cohorts or input their own before exporting a consolidated plan.
Thakkar also noted that the definition of CTV has expanded beyond OTT services. “CTV is not just OTTs, it’s also FAST. That’s moved beyond broadcasters, because broadcasters also realize that, hey, there are cord cutters.” With increasing cord-cutting, broadcasters have started offering free ad-supported streaming options and forming partnerships with device manufacturers. Frodoh’s platform includes these developments when recommending media channels.
A key challenge in CTV, Thakkar said, is reporting. Advertisers often receive fragmented data from different platforms, with limited insight beyond impressions or clicks. “Reporting has always been a black hole. An advertiser has to deal with multiple platforms, multiple formats, multiple devices now.” The platform aims to consolidate reporting and offer detailed analytics such as performance by time of day or platform. Reports can be downloaded in presentation format to reduce manual processing.
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