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Vice India raring to break into a sprint

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MUMBAI: Vice India is betting big on its creative agency Virtue Worldwide, which has helped provide solutions to brands in several markets.  Among the brands under its banner are ABInBev, Samsung, Uber, Airbnb and Google.

Now, the agency within the Shane Smith, Suroosh Alvi-founded outfit is rolling out its suite of brand solutions in India.  Among the first partnerships, it has announced, is the one with PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew.

The collaboration will see the Vice crew follow and explore the journey of a real-life hero Arjun Vajpai as he attempts to climb Mt Kangchenjunga – one of the most difficult summits to conquer.

“We are excited to be the first to work with Vice India, that aims to be the vehicle and voice for the Indian youth. This partnership represents the convergence of two brands coming together to tell an inspiring story of courage to millions of young consumers across the country,” says Pepsico India associate director –Mountain Dew Naseeb Puri.

Adds Vice India chief executive officer Chanpreet Arora:  “We are happy partnering with PepsiCo on one of our first content pieces in India so that the stories we want to tell reach out to the country with the help of one of India’s biggest and most recognisable brands.”

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Arora, along with head of content Samira Kanwar, has been working on roping in more than 40 young journalists, editors, producers and creatives in India to focus on content production, editorial, creative services and content distribution. The focus, according to a Vice India release has been to put in place “a local, young and experienced leadership team, deeply embedded in the culture of India.”

She hopes that other brands will sign on with Vice India, which is being positioned as a full-scale media company with content at its centre and a multi-platform distribution plan – producing scripted, film, news and culture content from India for television, SVOD, OTT and digital platforms. The launch date is planned for April, and the teams in both the cities have been working at a frenetic pace to get things up and running by D-Day.

Points out the Delhi-based Arora: “We are committed to building a company that speaks to a generation that is defining today’s cultural conversation in India and that is based on values of empathy, equality and inclusion. All our decisions, including choice of partners, must reflect this core belief.”

Vice India’s planned local content will span conversations across topics like food, music, sex, identity, nightlife, arts, politics, literature, and comedy, showcasing the realities and diverse aspects of India without conforming to the boundaries set by multiple languages or cultures.

Reveals the Mumbai-based Kanwar who is spearheading all the content offerings that Vice will dish out: “Content sits at the centre of everything we do. We hope to create content and experiences that matter to India’s youth irrespective of the language or regions we come from. Vice India will be a platform for young people to speak up, be heard and also feel at home about their own identities and ideas.”

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Adds Vice CEO Asia Pacific Hosi Simon: “Vice India’s goal is to be deeply locally relevant for youth across all parts and cultures of India. We are very thankful for our partnership with The Times of India, led by Times Bridge. Together, we have architected as ambitious a launch as Vice has put together anywhere in the world.”

The Times Group investment arm Times Bridge CEO Rishi Jaitly, highlights that Vice India is poised to delight millennial and GenZ audiences across the country from day one. Says he: “The stories and experiences produced by Vice India will engage youth culture here in a manner not previously seen. We’re proud of our team and look forward to a breakthrough 2018.”

For Vice globally, one of the big changes that happened earlier this month was the elevation of Shane Smith as executive chairman from CEO and the stepping in of former A+E Networks CEO Nancy Dubuc as his replacement. A&E was one of the earliest investors in Smith’s vision for Vice.  Smith was kicked upstairs to focus on content creation and forging strategic deals and partnerships to grow the company. 

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Chanpreet Arora appointed CEO of Vice Media India

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Vice Media to launch Vice India on April 2

Vice Media to build largest OTT platform, expand to 80 markets by early ’18

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Nielsen launches co-viewing pilot to sharpen TV measurement

Super Bowl pilot to refine how shared TV audiences are counted

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MUMBAI: Nielsen is taking a fresh stab at one of television’s oldest blind spots: how many people are actually watching the same screen. The audience-measurement giant on February 4 unveiled a co-viewing pilot that uses wearable devices to better capture shared viewing, starting with America’s biggest broadcast stage.

The trial begins with Super Bowl LX on NBC on February 8, 2026, before extending to other high-profile live sports and entertainment events in the first half of the year. The goal is simple but commercially potent: count viewers more accurately, especially during live spectacles that pull families and friends to one screen.

The new approach leans on Nielsen’s proprietary wearable meters, wrist-worn devices that resemble smartwatches. These passively capture audio signatures from TV content, logging exposure to shows, films and live events without requiring viewers to sign in or self-report. In theory, fewer clicks, fewer lapses, better data.

Karthik Rao, Nielsen’s ceo, cast the move as part of a broader measurement push. He said the company’s task is to keep pushing accuracy as clients invest heavily in live programming that draws mass audiences. The co-viewing pilot, he added, builds on upgrades such as Big Data + Panel measurement, out-of-home expansion, live-streaming metrics and wearable-based tracking.

Co-viewing is not new territory for Nielsen, which has long tried to estimate how many people sit before a single set. What is new is the heavier integration of wearables and passive detection to reduce reliance on active inputs from panel homes.

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For now, the pilot comes with caveats. Co-viewing estimates from the trial will not be folded into Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel ratings, which remain the industry’s trading currency. Instead, pilot findings will be shared with clients a few weeks after final Big Data + Panel ratings are delivered. Clients may disclose those findings publicly.

More impact data will follow later this year. Full integration into Nielsen’s marketing-intelligence suite is slated as a longer-term play, with a target of bringing co-viewing into currency measurement for the 2026–2027 season. This is only phase one, with further co-viewing enhancements planned beyond 2026 and additional timelines to be announced.

The push fits a wider pattern. Nielsen has in recent years expanded big-data integration, adopted first-party data for live-streaming measurement and broadened out-of-home tracking. It also positions itself as the reference point for streaming metrics through products such as The Gauge and the Nielsen Streaming Top 10.

In a market where billions of ad dollars hinge on decimal points, counting who is in the room matters. If Nielsen can pin down shared viewing, the humble sofa could become prime measurement real estate. The race to count every eyeball just found a new wrist to watch.

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Delhivery chairman Deepak Kapoor, independent director Saugata Gupta quit board

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Gurugram: Delhivery’s boardroom is being reset. Deepak Kapoor, chairman and independent director, has resigned with effect from April 1 as part of a planned board reconstitution, the logistics company said in an exchange filing. Saugata Gupta, managing director and chief executive of FMCG major Marico and an independent director on Delhivery’s board, has also stepped down.

Kapoor exits after an eight-year stint that included steering the company through its 2022 stock-market debut, a period that saw Delhivery transform from a venture-backed upstart into one of India’s most visible logistics platforms. Gupta, who joined the board in 2021, departs alongside him, marking a simultaneous clearing of two senior independent seats.

“Deepak and Saugata have been instrumental in our process of recognising the need for and enabling the reconstitution of the board of directors in line with our ambitious next phase of growth,” said Sahil Barua, managing director and chief executive, Delhivery. The statement frames the exits less as departures and more as deliberate succession, a boardroom shuffle timed to the company’s evolving scale and strategy.

The resignations arrive amid broader governance recalibration. In 2025, Delhivery appointed Emcure Pharmaceuticals whole-time director Namita Thapar, PB Fintech founder and chairman Yashish Dahiya, and IIM Bangalore faculty member Padmini Srinivasan as independent directors, signalling a tilt towards consumer, fintech and academic expertise at the board level.

Kapoor’s tenure spanned Delhivery’s most defining years, rapid network expansion, public listing and the push towards profitability in a bruising logistics market. Gupta’s presence brought FMCG and brand-scale perspective during a period when ecommerce volumes and last-mile delivery economics were being rewritten.

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The twin exits, effective from the new financial year, underscore a familiar corporate rhythm: founders consolidate, veterans rotate out, and fresh voices are ushered in to script the next chapter. In India’s hyper-competitive logistics race, even the boardroom does not stand still.

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Meta appoints Anuvrat Rao as APAC head of commerce partnerships

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SINGAPORE: Anuvrat Rao has taken charge as APAC  head of commerce and signals partnerships at Meta, steering monetisation deals across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp from Singapore. The former Google executive, known for launching Google Assistant, PWAs, AMP and Firebase across Asia-Pacific, steps into the role after a high-growth stint as chief business officer at Locofy.ai.

At Locofy.ai, Rao helped convert a three-year free beta into a paid engine, clocking 1,000 subscribers and 15 enterprise clients within ten days of launch in September 2024. The low-code startup, backed by Accel and top tech founders, is famed for turning designs into production-ready code using proprietary large design models.

Before that, Rao founded generative AI venture 1Bstories, which was acquired by creative AI platform Laetro in mid-2024, where he briefly served as managing director for APAC. Alongside operating roles, he has been an active investor and advisor since 2020, backing startups such as BotMD, Muxy, Creator plus, Intellect, Sealed and CricFlex through a creator-economy-led thesis.

Rao spent over eight years at Google, holding senior partnership roles across search, assistant, chrome, web and YouTube in APAC, and earlier cut his teeth in strategy consulting at OC&C in London and investment finance at W. P. Carey in Europe and the US.

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