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Category: iWorld

  • History in a hurry as Instamart delivers Gandhi’s 1969 centenary edition

    History in a hurry as Instamart delivers Gandhi’s 1969 centenary edition

    MUMBAI: Who says history takes time? This October 2, Instamart is making the past arrive faster than you can brew your morning chai delivering a limited-edition reprint of The Hindu’s 1969 archival issue that marked Mahatma Gandhi’s 100th birth anniversary.

    The 23-page collector’s edition, released in partnership with The Hindu, offers a page-by-page journey through Gandhi’s life from his early activism in South Africa to the Salt March of 1930, the Quit India Movement, and finally, India’s freedom and his assassination in 1948. The reprint includes rare photographs: Gandhi with Nehru during the Quit India call, reading letters at Mani Bhavan in 1934, striding along Juhu Beach in 1944, and collecting contributions for Dalits in 1946.

    The edition doesn’t stop at visuals. It also brings back The Hindu’s first-ever editorial mention of Gandhi from 1896, his direct communications with the paper, original coverage of Independence in 1947, and a special 2003 supplement from The Hindu’s 125th anniversary.

    THG Publishing pvt. ltd., CEO Navaneeth L V said, “This commemorative issue reflects not just Gandhi’s extraordinary journey, but also The Hindu’s role as a chronicler of India’s freedom struggle. We are proud that Instamart will help carry this heritage to a new generation of readers.”

    Instamart, AVP & category head Manender Kaushik added, “Bringing this historic edition to readers via Instamart is our way of connecting India’s rich past with today’s fast-paced lifestyles. It’s more than a newspaper; it’s a tangible experience of history and a collectible to be treasured, delivered to your doorstep in minutes.”

    Available in Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi and select cities, the edition will be delivered in just 10 minutes, giving readers a chance to hold a slice of history without leaving home. Alongside, Instamart is also stocking up on festive essentials from gourmet treats to home décor for those looking to pair nostalgia with celebration.

    For once, the Father of the Nation’s story won’t take a march, it’ll simply knock at your door.

  • Jiostar sparks insights with new advertising series

    Jiostar sparks insights with new advertising series

    MUMBAI: Advertising just got a front-row seat. Jiostar Entertainment has launched The Collective, a new series designed to convene India’s leading marketing voices to explore the future of advertising in entertainment.

    https://ads.jiostar.com/jiohotstarctvplaybook/thecollective/

    The premiere episode featured a star-studded panel, including Jahid Ahmed (HDFC Bank), Sachin Vashishtha (Paisabazaar), Varun Mundra (Motilal Oswal), Sajit Gopal (Domino’s) and Jiteen Aggarwal (Hettich India), in conversation with Jai Lala of Zenith India.

    Discussions ranged from the rise of connected TVs as India’s central household screen and the measurability of CTV campaigns, to OTT’s expanding role in digital adoption and co-viewing patterns. The session also explored how brand-safe OTT environments deliver enhanced value for advertisers.

    The Collective will continue as an ongoing series, bringing fresh conversations with brand leaders, marketers and industry experts to decode the fast-evolving advertising and entertainment landscape in India. 

  • Real Bazar pitches AI matchmaking for the creator economy

    Real Bazar pitches AI matchmaking for the creator economy

    MUMBAI:The influencer marketing game is worth $24bn, yet brands still struggle to find creators who actually suit them—and creators still struggle to get paid properly. Real Bazar, a Mumbai startup launched on October 1st, reckons it has the answer: artificial intelligence that plays cupid between companies and content-makers.

    Co-founded by Abhishek Mittal and Viraj Dave, the platform uses AI to match brands with creators whose audiences and styles align with their needs, then handles everything from brainstorming reels to tracking performance and processing payments. The pitch is simple: stop wasting time on mismatched collaborations and botched content.

    “The creator economy is at a critical inflection point,” says co-founder Mittal. Brands face mounting pressure to produce short-form video content that resonates, he argues, whilst creators struggle to monetise their work effectively. Real Bazar’s gambit is to transform what he calls “transactional collaborations” into sustained partnerships.

    The platform offers three core functions. Its AI-integrated reel studio helps companies draft and optimise video content at speed. Its matchmaking engine analyses brand objectives against creator profiles, pairing them by niche, engagement and audience fit. And its collaboration hub manages negotiations, payments and performance tracking in one place.

    Whether Real Bazar can solve influencer marketing’s thorniest problems—authenticity, transparency and return on investment—remains an open question. But in a market where brands are desperate for content that converts and creators are hungry for fair pay, the startup is betting that algorithmic efficiency beats human intuition.

    The platform launched with little fanfare beyond its press release. Time will tell whether its AI can truly decode the alchemy of viral content—or whether it simply adds another layer of technology to an already crowded market.

  • Climate-conscious marketing startup bags $2m to fix advertising’s waste problem

    Climate-conscious marketing startup bags $2m to fix advertising’s waste problem

    MUMBAI: Nearly two-fifths of the $1 trillion sloshed around global advertising each year vanishes into the ether—wasted on botched targeting, feeble creative and sheer duplication. Climaty AI reckons it can plug the leak.
    The Dubai-based startup, which bills itself as the world’s first “CliMarTech” company, has secured $2m in early-stage funding led by Turbostart to build what it calls an agentic AI ecosystem—self-learning marketing infrastructure that optimises campaigns in real time whilst measuring their carbon footprint.

    Founded by Neel Pandya, former chief executive of AI startup Pixis (which he helped scale to $225m in funding), Climaty AI deploys four AI-powered agents—Campaign Builder, Creator, Optimizer and Analytics—to automate the grunt work and free media planners to focus on strategy rather than spreadsheets.

    The funding will bankroll expansion across Asia-Pacific, EMEA, Britain and north America, where demand for sustainable marketing is climbing. Climaty AI has already run pilots with Opella and tested its platform across edtech, consumer healthcare, automotive and consumer goods sectors.

    “Marketing platforms of the future will combine performance with accountability. Climaty AI is shaping this new standard with CliMarTech and agentic AI,” said Bengaluru-based venture and accelerator fund Turbostart founder Ganesh Raju. 

    Pandya, who spent two decades at L’Oréal, Vodafone and GroupM before diving into AI, argued that the most successful brands will treat accountability as a performance driver rather than a cost centre. “Agentic AI and sustainability are at the core of everything we do,” he said.

    The pitch: smarter campaigns, measurable results, and a smaller carbon footprint—performance and responsibility in one package. Whether agencies and brands buy it remains to be seen, but with $370 billion going up in smoke annually, there’s certainly room for improvement.

  • Mipcom 2025: Glance to crack the code on what audiences actually want

    Mipcom 2025: Glance to crack the code on what audiences actually want

    PARIS: In a media landscape where Netflix and YouTube hoover up nearly half of all US streaming hours, knowing what audiences want isn’t just useful—it’s survival.

    Glance, the TV and video market intelligence outfit, will lay bare the winning formulas at Mipcom Cannes 2025 next month, drawing on audience data from more than 120 territories to answer the industry’s most vexing question: who’s watching what, how and why?

    Frédéric Vaulpré, senior vice-president, and Maryam Ramassamy, international research director, will lead the session on 13  October, tackling how content creators can stand out as linear TV withers and streaming platforms multiply like rabbits.

    The presentation will dissect BVoD strategies including TF1+’s digital ad revenue surge, and explore the curious phenomenon of “co-petition”—traditional broadcasters cosying up to the very streaming giants eating their lunch. With advertisers fixated on the golden 25-49 demographic and revenues under pressure, the old rules no longer apply.

    Glance will showcase how hyper distribution—flinging content across AVoD, Fast, SVoD and linear channels simultaneously—often trumps exclusivity. The session will also examine how content is tapping into geopolitical anxiety, evolving gender norms and early-2000s nostalgia, whilst high-concept formats embrace AI and other shiny new tech.

    “The media landscape is more fragmented than ever, yet the need for precise audience intelligence has never been greater,” said Vaulpré.

    Ramassamy added: “Our industry is trying to cope with a fundamental change in how audiences consume TV, in both substance and form. The storytelling needs to be closer to audiences’ current state of mind.”

    Glance, part of Médiamétrie, delivers official ratings for more than 7,000 channels and works with over 100 data providers and 230 major broadcasters, streaming services and production studios worldwide. The Paris-based firm employs over 700 people and notched  a turnover of €103.5m in 2024.

    The session takes place at 9 am on 13 October in the Grand Auditorium at the Palais des Festivals.

  • Flipkart bags a trip as Marriott Bonvoy turns carts into passports

    Flipkart bags a trip as Marriott Bonvoy turns carts into passports

    MUMBAI: Who knew a pair of “Bali earrings” could land you in Bali? Or that “Korean skincare” could be your boarding pass to Seoul? Flipkart and Marriott Bonvoy have pulled off India’s first dual loyalty integration, proving that sometimes your cart really can take you places.

    The campaign, cheekily titled “Your Cart Takes You Places” by 22Feet Tribal Worldwide, hijacks Flipkart’s own search bar. The agency crunched through 300-plus keywords and cherry-picked the top 10 that doubled up as travel destinations. For two weeks, when users typed in searches like “Bali” or “Korean skincare,” the dropdown offered not just products but also Marriott Bonvoy stays in Bali or South Korea.

    It’s a neat twist on loyalty turning points and purchases into serendipitous upgrades. And the films that accompany the campaign pile on the humour, showing shoppers obliviously browsing their way closer to dream getaways.

    “Our partnership with Flipkart is a first-of-its-kind move that connects two different worlds everyday shopping and global travel through a shared loyalty currency,” said a Marriott International spokesperson. “We’re making rewards interchangeable and aspirational while still being local and accessible.”

    A Flipkart Travel spokesperson agreed, “This partnership bridges shopping and travel. Integrating Marriott Bonvoy into Flipkart search makes discovery delightful, and connecting Flipkart Supercoins with Marriott Bonvoy creates a more meaningful rewards ecosystem.”

    The creative spark came from simple human envy, according to 22Feet Tribal Worldwide national creative head Vishnu Srivatsav, “A unique partnership needed a unique experience. We didn’t just treat it as advertising but built on the experience itself. It drew from search habits on Flipkart, and when we told the story, we leaned on envy.”

    The campaign didn’t stop at Flipkart’s app. It spilled over to X (formerly Twitter) with chatter around “happy accidents,” rolled out influencer collaborations on social media, and nudged users to link accounts for a seamless shop-to-stay journey.

    At its heart, the campaign makes one point clear: every click on Flipkart could be a step closer to a Marriott Bonvoy check-in. Suddenly, loyalty feels less like points and more like postcards.

  • Dexter decodes Youtube moments as VDO.AI replays the adtech playbook

    Dexter decodes Youtube moments as VDO.AI replays the adtech playbook

    MUMBAI: Ads are finally getting smarter than the “skip” button. VDO.AI has unveiled Dexter, a cutting-edge contextual intelligence solution that promises to transform Youtube advertising by reading video content the way a human would only faster. Billed as the future of contextual advertising, Dexter can scan scenes, audio, transcripts, objects and even sentiment to ensure ads appear at precisely the right moment. That means your luxury resort spot could play after a cinematic drone shot of a Ferrari, never before a violent fight sequence.

    VDO.AI co-founder and CTO Arjit Sachdeva explained, “Dexter is built to read video content the way a human would, understanding visuals, audio, sentiment, and context at scale. It is this human-like intelligence, applied with machine speed, that sets a new benchmark for contextual advertising on YouTube. Early partners using Dexter have already seen 40–60 per cent higher performance across view-through rates, recall, and conversions. These results demonstrate that contextual intelligence, when applied at scale, is not just the future of advertising, but a growth driver for businesses today.”

    The promise is not just precision, it’s protection. By keeping brand ads clear of unsafe or unsuitable content, Dexter tackles one of the industry’s biggest headaches: maintaining brand safety while delivering engagement at scale.

    VDO.AI chief business officer Akshay Chaturvedi elaborated, “Dexter’s advanced AI engine analyses video content with unmatched precision, reading every contextual signal to create perfect advertising moments. When a viewer is engaging with luxury car content, Dexter will intelligently serve an ad for an exclusive resort getaway or a luxury handbag while ensuring your brand ad never appears alongside inappropriate content like violent footage. This powerful combination of contextual intelligence and brand safety allows brands to reach audiences when they’re most engaged and receptive, driving meaningful connections that translate into measurable business impact.”

    Now rolled out globally, Dexter marks a significant expansion of VDO.AI into Youtube’s ad ecosystem. It’s the culmination of years of AI research and development, placing the company firmly at the forefront of contextual advertising innovation.

    With brands increasingly demanding precision targeting and brand safety, VDO.AI is betting that Dexter can become the industry’s new secret weapon turning what was once guesswork into smart, context-driven placements that boost both trust and conversions.

    For Youtube viewers, it might mean the ads finally make sense. For brands, it could be the difference between being tuned out or remembered.

  • Bodhi Tree partners author Amit Khan to create original OTT and TV projects

    Bodhi Tree partners author Amit Khan to create original OTT and TV projects

    MUMBAI: Bodhi Tree Multimedia Ltd (BTML) has signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with celebrated Hindi novelist Amit Khan’s creative venture, Amit Khan Content Hub (AKCH), to jointly develop premium original content for television and OTT platforms.

    The partnership combines BTML’s production scale, operational expertise, and financing capabilities with AKCH’s prolific storytelling and loyal reader base. Together, they aim to deliver narratives that balance mass appeal with creative depth.

    A special purpose vehicle (SPV) will be formed, with BTML holding a majority stake. BTML will handle financing, operations, and strategic partnerships, while AKCH will lead creative development and production execution.

    Author of over 100 Hindi pulp-fiction novels and founder of AKCH, including the iconic Commander Karan Saxena series (which was later adapted into a Jiocinema series of the same name), Amit Khan said, “I am thrilled to join hands with BTML, a company that has consistently delivered high-quality and impactful content. With our combined strengths, we are confident of creating stories that will resonate with viewers and leave a lasting mark on the Indian entertainment industry.”

    BTML, managing director, Mautik Tolia, added, “This partnership is a confluence of creativity and capability. Amit Khan is one of India’s most celebrated novelists and storytellers, and we are excited to bring his distinctive vision to screens nationwide through BTML’s production infrastructure and industry relationships.”

    BTML, listed on both NSE and BSE, has produced 100 plus shows and over 3,000 hours of content across languages including Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati, and Bengali. With this collaboration, both BTML and AKCH aim to target domestic and international audiences with fresh, compelling narratives.

    The first slate of projects is expected to combine rich storytelling with high production values, reinforcing both companies’ commitment to creating content that engages audiences across platforms.

     

     

  • Dandiya dazzle as Hindi cinema joins Falguni Pathak fun

    Dandiya dazzle as Hindi cinema joins Falguni Pathak fun

    MUMBAI: Talk about a Hindi cinema beat! The Radiance Dandiya Navratri Utsav 2025 with Falguni Pathak turned Mumbai into a whirlwind of music, colour, and star-studded glamour as the cast of Sunny sanskari ki tulsi kumari: Varun Dhawan, Janhvi Kapoor, Rohit Saraf, Sanya Malhotra and Maniesh Paul, took to the stage on Sunday night.

    Thousands of fans in vibrant festive attire cheered as the stars grooved alongside Falguni Pathak to the chartbuster anthem ‘Bijuria’, breaking into the hook step and creating a magical fusion of Hindi cinema sparkle and Dandiya tradition. The cast also performed a high-energy dance to the peppy track ‘Panwadi’ from their upcoming film, with fans singing along and waving to the rhythm.

    Falguni Pathak’s evergreen hits and signature Garba beats kept the crowd dancing through the night, while a wave of patriotic cheer swept the arena as Team India clinched the Asia Cup 2025. Over seven nights, the festival transformed the Jio World Convention Centre into a hub of devotion, music, and celebration, with special private pods adding a touch of exclusive fun for close groups.

    The event also drew celebrity guests including Dilip Joshi, Divyanka Tripathi, Rupali Ganguly, Orry and Viraj Ghelani, soaking in the festive spirit. Produced by Tribevibe Entertainment, a Bookmyshow company, and Purple Blue Events & Ideas, the Utsav showcased a seamless blend of tradition and modernity, setting a new benchmark for Navratri celebrations in Mumbai.

    With more energetic performances and timeless music to come, Falguni Pathak’s Navratri nights promise to keep the city dancing and celebrating long into the festival season.

  • TTT and Maybelline launch gen z microdrama ‘Pookie’ capturing college romance

    TTT and Maybelline launch gen z microdrama ‘Pookie’ capturing college romance

    MUMBAI: Collective Artists Network’s Terribly Tiny Tales (TTT), India’s leading storytelling platform, has released Pookie, a four-episode microdrama that captures the messy, funny, and tender moments of college life.

    Backed by Maybelline New York’s super-stay matte ink collection, the series follows the journey of Raima, played by content creator Tarini Shah, a lively, coffee-loving student full of hobbies and Arko, a quieter soul who finds joy in nature and simplicity.

    Pookie reflects on first friendships, first love, and the small yet unforgettable experiences that shape college years. With its unfiltered, relatable tone, the series resonates with gen z audiences, spotlighting how beauty and self-expression go hand-in-hand in today’s world.

    Speaking about the collaboration, Maybelline New York India, general manager, Jessica Rode said, “Confidence and self-expression are at the heart of today’s generation. Pookie with TTT gave us the perfect opportunity to be part of a story that felt authentic and relevant to our consumers. The emerging format of micro-dramas really helped us engage young audiences beyond traditional campaigns and build a real connection between the brand and viewers.”

    Featuring popular content creator Tarini Shah, whose presence in the fashion and lifestyle space amplifies the authenticity of the story, the series deepens its relatability for gen z audiences.

    Terribly Tiny Tales, founder & CEO, Anuj Gosalia added, “Pookie was fun, heartfelt, and rooted in everyday experiences. It’s always special when brands support us in experimenting with formats like micro-dramas. TTT is on an exciting growth curve, and with partners like Maybelline, we’re even more motivated to deliver fresh, diverse storytelling.”

    Pookie premiered on TTT’s Youtube channel on 27th September, with the finale streaming on 30th September 2025.